Dinah the Pink Dinosaur

At the east end of Vernal, a sign on the side of Highway 40 reads “Vernal: Utah’s Dinosaur Land.” It is held up in the mitten-like paws of a candy-pink dinosaur forty feet tall. She is Dinah, a stylized brontosaurus with a curving neck, a toothy smile, large eyes and long lashes. The City of Vernal owns her, keeps her up, and uses her as its mascot. Her likeness appears on local street signs and in advertising for community events.

Fiberglass on a steel frame

Under the paint is wire mesh and fiberglass resin over a metal frame. Utah Humanities puts the shell at 4,200 pounds of fiberglass on a steel frame. It says the eyes were mechanical when she was built and could light up and roll around. A photograph in the Uintah County Regional History Center’s Thorne collection, dated to the years 1955 through 1960, shows “the large pink fiberglass dinosaur with the rolling eyes” in front of the Dine A Ville Motel.

The sources disagree on her original color. Utah Humanities writes that she was not always bright pink and first wore a similar shade of orange. Vernal City Manager Ken Bassett told FOX 13 in 2014 that “it’s always been pink.”

She has company in town. According to Utah Humanities, George Millecam had seven dinosaurs built across Vernal between 1967 and 1970 to draw attention to the area’s fossils and other attractions, and Dinah is among the oldest. A green tyrannosaur, which George and Helen Millecam built around 1969, stands on Highway 40 near the post office. Basin Now reported in 2023 that people missed seeing his costumes for holidays and each season. The town now publishes a list for a self-guided Dinosaurland Dino Hunt, and a few Main Street addresses hand out Dinosaur Hunting Licenses.

A clay model and a motel on Main Street

In 1955 George and Helen Millecam offered to buy a motel on Main Street from George’s parents. They changed its name from Millecam’s Motel to the Dine-A-Ville Motel so the business would be tied to Dinosaur National Monument.

Accounts differ on how the dinosaur came about:

• The National Register record says that in 1958 Helen proposed a roadside sculpture to bring in more business. She modeled a small stylized brontosaurus in clay and took it to the Young Brothers’ Electric Sign Company in Salt Lake City. The company designed and built a full-size replica, which stood at the curb later that year.
• Utah Humanities says George, as the businessman who owned the motel, commissioned her from the YESCO Sign Company.
• The Associated Press, writing in 1999, said George unveiled her. He hoped she would draw visitors to the monument and to his motel.

She drew enough attention that the area Chamber of Commerce adopted her image to promote all of northeastern Utah. The Millecam children grew up around her. “My little sister that’s four and my older sister and my brother, that’s where we would pose for our family pictures was with Dinah,” Melinda Barlow, a daughter of the Millecams, said in 2014. “We loved her. We played on her all the time. She was like the best play area ever.” Barlow has since made toy Dinahs.

The Register record says the Dine-A-Ville closed in 1990 after more than forty years in business. Mountain America Credit Union bought the property in 1996, and its downtown branch stands there now.

Moving day, 1999

The Associated Press reported that the credit union tried to work Dinah into its construction plans but decided she would not fit. The Register record says the credit union donated her to the city in September 1999. FOX 13 reported that Helen, by then Helen Millecam-Morrill, donated Dinah to the city in 1999, and that she was delighted the city would maintain her.

The two accounts of the move also give different dates. The Register record says city maintenance workers hired a crane and forklift in August 1999. The AP story, dated October 10, 1999, says crews arrived “late last month.” They cut her free from her pedestal in front of the recently demolished motel, laid her on a forklift, and carried her to a small new city park. A small group came to watch. “We had to come to say goodbye to the dinosaur,” said Willa Rae Dilworth, a local schoolteacher and a granddaughter of Dinah’s inventor.

According to the AP, her old post greeted visitors from the western end of town. The move took her to the east entrance. The Register record says the name Dinah came with the move, along with a coat of pink paint and a new welcome sign, although the AP story on the move already called her Dinah.

The AP said the move left Vernal residents with two questions. The first was what she would hold now that the motel sign was gone. The city’s elementary school students were to decide, and their suggestions included a cracked dinosaur egg and a brontosaur-sized golf club. The second was whether her neighbor would be lonely: a fiercer tyrannosaur that guarded the median across the street. Shortly before the move, she had appeared on the MTV program “Road Rules,” and the touring teens had to give her a fresh coat of pink paint.

Sandblasting, and the Register

Fresh coats of pink had kept her going for years. By 2014, though, her metal insides had rusted and her fiberglass shell was deteriorating. The city council set aside $26,000 to clean rust from the frame, patch the fiberglass and repaint her. “Now it’s gotten to the point that we have to sand blast it, redo the fiberglass and some of the metalwork as well, and then start all over and paint it beautifully pink again,” Bassett said. She stayed in place during the work and kept her pink color and her eyelashes, with the job set to finish in May. “It lasted over 50 years, so it’s going to last another 50 years, why not?” Bassett said. Helen Millecam-Morrill had a longer span in mind. “I hope it stays for 100 years!” she said.

In February 2023, Assistant City Manager Gabby Blackburn told the city council that the State Historic Preservation Office had approached the city about listing Dinah and the T-Rex on the National Register. She said the city could still maintain and decorate the statues as it saw fit, and the council agreed. Dinah was listed on November 13, 2023, under her historic name, Dine-A-Ville Dinosaur, at 905 E. Main Street. The listing records her significance in entertainment/recreation and art, with a period of significance from 1958 to 1973. National Register Coordinator Cory Jensen confirmed that she was Utah’s most recent listing.

The National Park Service’s summary of the nomination addresses the move directly. It says her new site has “the orientation, setting, and general environment comparable to those of the historic location,” where she now welcomes visitors traveling from the east and from Dinosaur National Monument.