Others' Comments on Dinosaur Land
Front Royal-Warren Sentinel, Skyline, Wed. July 26, 1989 by Donna M. Funk:
"It's an invitation to primeval danks and deeps, swamps and tropical landscapes, filled with the largest, probably most ferocious, creatures ever to stalk the earth or swim her waters...
All too seldom do dreams of childhood find fulfillment...
However, area residents need not go to great lengths to
touch a dream; down at Double Toll Gate, just over the
Warren County line on Rt. 340 and 522N. between Front
Royal and Winchester lies Dinosaur Land, an enchanted
place filled the fences with facts and mystery."
Washington Post Magazine, Dec. 15, 1985 by Brad Lemley:
"A walk through Dinosaur Land, alone, on a cold fall day can tug at you in a way that is hard to describe. There is something in the swirl of dead leaves around the gaily painted tentacles of a 20 foot fiberglass octopus, something in the defiant gaze of the giant sloth, designed to thrill a crowd...
The beast are not all dinosaurs. Inexplicably, a giant cobra, a 13 ft. tall praying mantis and a 30 ft. tall King Kong are wedged in with the prehistoric models."
Winchester Star, Area, Friday Dec. 7, 1990 by Chet Bridger:
"Dinosaur Land featuring fiberglass replicas of the prehistoric creatures, is a small outdoor park that has delighted children for 26 years.
All you have to do is tour the park and discover that the visit is educational. It features about 30 dinosaurs, and each is labeled with information about when it lived, what it ate and other facts.
Children can also buy a guidebook that most science teachers would probably endorse."
Washington Post Loudoun Weekly, Thurs. June 28, 1990 by Dana Priest:
"Unheralded by billboard or advertisement, the park is inhabited by 37 models of the country's most beloved extinct creatures.
There are no moving parts among the exhibits, no blinking lights, no videotaped explanations and not rides to bring the park alive—just the fired-up imagination of every child who steps through the brown concrete cave-like entrance.
They range in height from 3-30 feet: and some are as long as 90 feet.
The newest addition, a bloody Titanosaurus fighting a Tyrannosaurus, was constucted by Mark Kline.
Hampshire Review, Wed. June 23,1993 by Jesssica Cox:
"Today, visitors to Dinosaur Land can 'turn back the pages of time' and walk for an afternoon with these wondrous creatures from the past. Since its opening in the mid 1960s, it has provided home 18-20,000 visitors each year with a breathtaking and colossal view of a time which has long fascinated the minds of Americans: the age of the dinosaur.
The only one of its kind in the east, Dinosaur Land provides guests with awesomely realistic views of more than 30 exhibits of display.
As Virginia's own "Jurassic Park," Dinosaur Land is doing its part to ensure that, although dinosaurs may be extinct, they will never be forgotten.
Winchester Star, Weekend, Fri., June 18, 1993 by Michele Studebaker:
"Like desert natives who live near the Grand Canyon and avoid its tourist-ridden cliffs like the plague, those of us fortunate enough to live near Dinosaur Land at Double Tollgate are apt to never have enjoyed its wonders.
As a child traveling with my family, I considered the looming brontosaurus that guards the grounds as a landmark. He indicated that we were halfway to our favorite camping spot.
But no amount of begging, whining, or groveling could induce our harried parents to stop for a tour of the prehistoric forest where Frederick and Clarke counties come together.
Their standard response, "That's nothing but a tourist trap," echoed in our six collective ears long after the looming reptiles dwindled to tiny toys in the distance.
That echo bounced forward into my adult life. In the past 13 years, I have raised three children in Clarke County and never, not once, have I yielded to their pleas for a stroll through the plastic past.
Until last week.
After screaming through a screening of the gigantosaurian-hit movie "Jurassic Park," it seemed only natural to seek out our own homey little slice of pre-history...
The grownups come to stroll beneath the leafy oaks and fragrant pines and to listen to shrieks of childhood delight and squeals of mock terror.
The children come to ogle, to be scared witless, and in these precocious times, to criticize the denizens of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
Many of the models were created in the dark days of paleontology, when scientists believed dinosaurs were stupid, "slow and squatty," according to Dinosaur Land brochure... But kids on the '90s , who ingested dinosaur facts along with their Pablum, are apt to point out some of the critters' anatomical shortcomings.
Even these junior scientists, however, will probably be impressed with the most recent addition to the fiberglass family.
It was created last year, at a cost about equal to the price of a local townhouse, by a man named Mark Kline. The model features the famous Tyrannosaurus Rex tearing the flesh from a screeching herbivore.
The scene is just gruesome enough, with gory exposed ribs, dangling flaps of flesh and an invisible tube pumping a stream of blood through the gaping wounds. It stops children in their tracks, momentarily derailing their interest in crawling under the models to check out their personal equipment. Instead, they stand transfixed at this timeless scene of survival.
Washington Times, Tues. Oct. 14, 1997 by Paula Gray Hunker:
One of the challenges of family life is coming up with weekend destinations with universal appeal. If the lure of autumn-leaf spotting is too ephemeral a pleasure for the younger members of your family, lure them into the car by promising them a stop at Dinosaur Land... In this rural Virginia location, between Front Royal and Winchester, this "prehistoric forest" is an outdoor attraction that has been welcoming 30,000 visitors a year for three decades.
Our family paid a recent visit to this land of 37 quasi-realistic behemoths and monsters. Even a cold drizzle could not stop the children from running through the tree lined walks to gawk at, sit on and pose with a mind-boggling variety of fiberglass-covered giant creatures.
Our first challenge was getting the children through the gift shop and into Dinosaur Land, which is entered from an unimposing doorway at the back of the multiroom store.
Dinosaur Land is not a place for a serious scientist. To enjoy it, visitors must be capable of suspending belief in favor of savoring the experience of having dinosaurs share a prehistoric forest with King Kong, a 20 foot coiled cobra and an inexplicably huge octopus.
Come prepared. Your children will want an eternal scrapbook record of every prehistoric find, and there are many.
We spent about 45 minutes with the dinosaurs and at least that amount of time inside the gift shop, which has the most eclectic collection of collectibles this side of Memphis, Tenn.