The Dinosaur Field Station will become our base of operations during the summer of 2010.  It will have a giftshop and museum area, a small accessible prep lab, and a small campground facility with some camping cabins for our guests. The best part about this project is that we will finally be able to offer tours our fossil prep lab. Here our guests will be able to see original dinosaur bones being prepared by our skilled technicians and see fossils as they come in from the field every night.

 

We will be building this facility slowly over the next several years, but the main 1,200 square ft. building is expected to be ready by June or July 2010. Right now we are considering various lots for the April/May construction, but have not settled on one just yet. We are still expecting to be in the Belle Fourche area for guests traveling to the northern Black Hills.

 

We will update this page as things progress. Over the next few months we will be able to determine where the new facility will be, upload maps to the location, and tell whether or not we will have lodging available for our tour guests this summer. For now, dinosaur diggers planning on scheduling a tour in June should probably look to the various other lodging options around Belle Fourche. These include the "Americinn" (for guests looking for deluxe accomodations including a pool), the "Motel 6", "The Bunkhouse" (formerly the Raptors Nest), the "Ace Motel" and "Sunset Motel".

All I can say right now, is that the property is approximately 7 miles west of the town of Belle Fourche near the Wyoming line (on the way to Devil's Tower). There is a small, old dinosaur quarry on the property which we hope will contain some more bones. We will close on May 1st and begin construction throughout May. It looks like we will have the buildings up by our first day of tours, but the inside may not be ready. We shall see. I will be heading back to SD in one week to begin and will post more news as it develops.