Dixie's dinosaurs: footprints in the sandstone

ST. GEORGE — Andrew Milner's passion is buried in the past, and he's hoping to expose as much of it to the world as possible.

Milner, staff paleontologist at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm, is anxious to both protect and show off the hundreds of dinosaur tracks and other rare and unique finds unearthed there nearly five years ago.

"We have the largest and best collection of dinosaur swim tracks in the world," Milner said, as he lifted a wooden cover off a huge block of sandstone. Several sets of a three-toed dinosaur's raised footprint stretched out in a single sweeping motion, frozen in time.

"You can see that this dinosaur was swimming against a strong current of water," he said, adding that a student at Southern Utah University is tackling the time-consuming project of using a computer modeling program to reconstruct the swim tracks.

Five years ago in February, retired optometrist Sheldon Johnson discovered the first of many dinosaur footprints cast in the hardened sandstone. Johnson eventually donated the tracks to St. George, and the city purchased the land at 2200 E. Riverside Drive.

Dozens of volunteers offered their expertise and maintained the site, day after day and year after year. The Johnsons spearheaded a nonprofit foundation to raise money for a museum, and St. George Mayor Dan McArthur pledged the city's support. Heritage Bank donated $100,000 to help complete the building, and the Washington County commissioners allocated another $150,000. Utah's congressional and state delegation secured about $900,000 to help protect the international treasure.

And the number of visitors to the site kept rising. School children took field trips to see Dixie's version of Jurassic Park. The city has even inaugurated a yearly celebration held each February called "Dino Days in Dixie."

So it's no small matter to finally see the steel beams beginning to take form over the prints, said Gary Sanders, administrator of the city's community arts and exhibit programs.

"This is just the beginning of it," he said. "We'll cover some of the tracks, but we'll also leave some of the area unexcavated. In a sense, there's going to be some mystique as to what's underneath all that rock."

The $1.2 million, 16,000-square-foot interpretive center should be completed by the end of the year, Sanders said, with a grand opening party slated to coincide with February's Dino Days.