road side dinosaurs...

Dinosaur Village RV Mobile Home Park, dinosaur statue and sign, Route 40, Utah, 1991. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-MA05-1459 3,656***** Photographer John Margolies spent nearly 40 years documenting what we now know as “roadside Americana”—the gas stations, motels, drive-ins, and diners that attracted road trippers with quirky signs and kooky architecture. In 2017, a year after Margolies died at the age of 76, the Library of Congress made its Margolies holdings available online—more than 11,000 color photos of food-shaped restaurants, catchy neon signs, and an intriguingly large number of dinosaurs. Margolies photographed the pink-hued Brontosaurus at the entrance to Florida’s Gatorland parking lot. At Myrtle Beach’s Wacky Golf, he captured a dinosaur marauding through a landscape crowded with a windmill, a sphinx, a church, and an assortment of cacti. And on Colorado’s State Highway 64 he shot a stegosaurus loitering outside a town hall, smiling slyly at the camera. The photographs have other similarities, too. They’re all taken under clear, blue, often saturated, skies. They are devoid of people. And they’re perfect examples of what Margolies became renowned for: photographs that celebrate the vernacular of America’s highways and byways, and elevate its quirks to a kind of high art.

Rebel Yell Raceway, dinosaur statue, Route 441, Tennessee, 1992. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-02333 Margolies’ love of the road was a lifelong affair. As a teenager on family trips, he was drawn to the places “where everything was screaming for attention: ‘Look at me. Look at me,’” he recalled in a 2015 interview with the Washington Post. In the early 1970s, he returned to the road, in a rental car, with a 35 millimeter Canon FT camera and the mission of documenting the architecture that many consider tacky. Margolies didn’t agree with that assessment. Speaking with the Canadian paper The Globe and Mail in 1987, he said “People generally have thought that what’s important are the large, unique architectural monuments. They think Toronto’s City Hall is important, but not those wonderful gnome’s-castle gas stations in Toronto, a Detroit influence that crept across the border and polluted your wonderfully conservative environment.”

Margolies had specific views about how his photographs should look. “I want these to be timeless pictures without identifying details,” he said. He kept a broom in his car to sweep debris from his frames, and waited for good weather. He traveled alone, for weeks on end, ultimately racking up more than 100,000 miles.

Windmill and dinosaur view 1, Wacky Golf, South Carolina, 1979. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-03455 The landscape that Margolies was chasing was disappearing even as he documented it. Drive-in theaters, also part of his collection, had been in decline for decades. Freeways had changed how people travel, and there were instances where buildings were knocked down just days after he photographed them. But, despite the feelings his images often evoke, Margolies wasn’t the type for nostalgia: “I don’t value sentiment.” Some of the dinosaur-related locations that Margolies photographed remain open, including Michigan’s Dinosaur Gardens. Located near Lake Huron, this dinosaur park not only has concrete dinosaurs, but also Ice Age–era humans and a statue of Jesus Christ holding the world. Other sites survive but are now abandoned. Atlas Obscura has a selection of images from Margolies’s quest to find the “deepest nowhere,” and the strange, garish beasts that he found there.

Brontosaurus and sign, Gatorland, Route 1, Florida, 1979. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/

Photo opportunity, Dinosaur World, Arkansas, 1994. LC-DIG-MRG-03673

Dinosaur, Sir Goony Golf, Independence Boulevard, North Carolina, 1982. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-02638

Brontosaurus with steps view 2, Dinosaur Park, Route 23, Michigan, 1988. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-03612

Stegosaurus statue at town hall, view 2, Route 64, Colorado, 1991. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-03762

Dinosaur slide (back), Bedrock City, Rts. 64 and 180, Arizona, 1987. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-03547

Dinosaur by castle, Santa’s Village, Route 2, New Hampshire, 1996. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-03571

Dinosaur tail, Rainbow Falls Golf, South Carolina, 1988. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-03034

Allosaur, Dinosaur World, Arkansas, 1994. LC-DIG-MRG-03556

Harold’s Auto Center, Sinclair gas station, Route 19, Florida, 1979. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-00002

Dinosaur Gardens, Route 23, Michigan, 1988. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-06398

Wall Drug dinosaur, South Dakota, 1980. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-02366.....did we see this? We've been to Wall Drug....

Dinosaur detail up, Magic Carpet Golf, Florida, 1985. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-03058

Tyrannosaurus, Dinosaur Park, South Dakota, 1987. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-MRG-03621

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Hearts made out of broken glass, tin cans, rocks, my new favorite place to walk!

could I make a heart like this????

Workman's Chapel, Maryville MO

182nd street (Burlington Jct?)

Maryville, MO (8.8 miles SSE)

not much to go on here....is there any chance I could blunder onto this location in the daytime? people are getting things in daylight, too....hoofbeats...church bells...>Workman Union Chapel , 64428 Burlington Junction, United States Approx 2 h 10 min drive

Giant Animal Cluster Field Bonne Terre, Missouri

Blackwell Motors displays a similar outdoor cluster of colossal fiberglass animals at its dealership in nearby Farmington -- but the collection here, scattered among rows of cars, is even more impressive. We spotted two big, beefy steers (of two different breeds), a gray elephant with pink polka dots, and a pink elephant with comically oversized eyeglasses (The mascot of the business is the pink elephant, sans specs). These behemoths are designed to be hoisted onto trailers and moved around, probably to other Blackwell dealerships; the selection may vary over time. Still, you don't often get the opportunity to compare/pose with different models of the same oversized mammals in the same parking lot. For fans of roadside mega-animals, this is a rewarding stop. Check out what's in the showroom -- more giant animals, along with celebrity memorabilia and other displays. And cars.

Giant Animal Cluster Blackwell Motors Address: 1001 Hwy K, Bonne Terre, MO Directions: Blackwell Motors. Exit US Hwy 67 at Bonne Terre. Turn west onto Hwy K, then make a quick left at the first stoplight. You'll see the animals ahead on the left. Phone: 573-431-8599 Admission: Free. RA Rates: Major Fun