From Deseret News archives:
Preserving dinos' poast for the future
About Utah
February marks the six-year anniversary of Sheldon's discovery on his St. George farmland of dinosaur footprints that paleontologists estimate were made some 200 million years ago.
And if the tracks could talk, they'd have to admit they haven't been in such good shape since they were first created when Jurassic era dinosaurs made their way through the mud on the way to a gigantic lake that used to cover all of Utah's Dixie.
That's because the tracks, more than 2,000 of them, are now safely housed in a temperature-controlled airplane-hangar sized building that was opened last July. Thanks to this safe haven, no longer are the tracks in danger of extinction by exposure to rain, heat and cold, or to the most dangerous modern predator of all: real estate development.
As nice a man as you'll ever want to meet, Sheldon never tires telling the story of how, in February of 2000, he was excavating the hill on the edge of his farm prior to selling the land to a developer when the track hoe he was operating flipped over a 9,000-pound rock and split it in two. There, staring Sheldon in the face, was a three-pronged mold that looked real old.
His wife Laverna's son, a professor at Dixie State College, came out, took a look and started hyperventilating.
Don't Crush That Rock!, Sheldon was told.
Others might have shrugged and continued preparing the land for sale. Not Sheldon. He'd had a nagging feeling he should "knock down that hill" when he went out and bought a $35,000 track hoe for that purpose. Now he was sure he had his answer why.
"I've always had a sort of spooky feeling about this," he says. "Like I was supposed to find it."
And for what purpose?
"We're not sure," said Sheldon, looking to Laverna for amplification.
"Well, it brings people here from all over the world," says Laverna. "There's been a lot of good come out of this."
No one has ever doubted the Johnsons' sincerity. They have tirelessly lobbied all the right people to raise the $1.5 million that has made the Johnson Farm Discovery Site a reality — and they haven't personally made a dime.
Thousands of people — from virtually every state and 87 countries so far — have visited the tracks since they were first unearthed six years ago.
But it's a safe bet that the attention coming to them the first part of February will eclipse all else.
