Giant pink dinosaur along Utah highway is officially a national treasure, officials say
Next time you drive through Utah, make sure to look out for one of the country’s newest national treasures. You probably won’t miss it, considering it’s bright pink and towers over the highway.
The Dine-A-Ville statue is a 65-year-old giant pink dinosaur statue that advertises a motel cafe along US-40, which was a newly paved highway in Vernal when the statue went up in 1958, according to Utah’s Department of Cultural & Community Engagement.
Vernal is located about 175 miles east of Salt Lake City.
The National Register of Historic Places designated it as a national treasure on Nov. 13.
“It is significant because the sculpture represents the growing local awareness of automobile tourism facilitated by an expanding network of federal highways post-World War II,” the Utah State Historic Preservation Office said on Facebook on Nov. 21. “The newly paved US-40 enabled travelers to more easily access nearby Dinosaur National Monument to the east of the city.”
George and Helen Millecam, who owned a local motel in the area, commissioned building the 40-foot statue as a marketing effort to lure tourists to their motel and attract more business, the historic preservation office said.
A black and white photo of the statue shows what it looked like just after it was installed. The dinosaur holds the motel sign — and for some odd reason, what looks like a human dangles from of its mouth.
A current photo shows the dinosaur holding a sign advertising Vernal as “Utah’s Dinosaur Land,” sans the human-sized mouthful.
This story was originally published November 22, 2023 at 1:45 PM.
