Dinah welcomes visitors to Vernal.

Dinah the Dine-A-Ville Dinosaur

Vernal, Utah

America has its share of odd town greeters, but none are as photogenically pink as Dinah the Dinosaur.

Dinah was designed in early 1958 by Helen Millecam, who owned the town's Dine-A-Ville Motel with her husband, George. The motel and dinosaur were an attempt by the Millecams to associate their business with nearby Dinosaur National Monument. Vernal is a bone-dig town that attracts dinosaur fans, and in the 1950s anyone driving between Salt Lake City and Denver traveled U.S. Highway 40, which went right past the Dine-A-Ville's front door.

Based on Helen's clay miniature, Dinah was built by the Young Brothers Electric Sign Company, which had previously created roadside spectaculars such as Vegas Vic and Wendover Will. Even though Dinah is 42 feet tall, with over a ton of steel, wire mesh, and fiberglass in her body, she was designed by Helen to be a friendly dinosaur, with long eyelashes and an open smile. Dinah held a Dine-A-Ville neon sign, and had big mechanical eyes that rolled around and glowed at night. Her wires and gears could be reached through an access hatch in her butt.

Dinah's original paint color has been a source of debate. Her earliest photos, all black and white, suggest that she may have been spotted, although a solid pinkish skin seems to have arrived fairly soon thereafter. Later versions of Dinah, which appeared elsewhere in Vernal, were rendered in burnt orange, like Fred Flintstone's 1960s bronto-crane, further confusing the subject. Repeated paintings have gradually given Dinah the cotton-candy-pink hue that she has now.

Standing upright, Dinah is 42 feet high, the size of a real dinosaur.

Dinah originally held a neon sign for the Dine-A-Ville motel.

Dinah proved to be so popular (she certainly beats seeing a stodgily-rendered Apatosaurus at the end of a long day of driving) that George Millecam decided to build his own dinosaurs, seven of them, and placed them around Vernal. Only one remains, a big green T. rex, toothy and fierce, which stood across the street from Dinah.

The Dine-A-Ville Motel was bulldozed in 1999, but by then Dinah had become a civic icon. She was saved, trucked several blocks east, and began a second career holding Vernal's welcome sign (Local schoolkids had wanted her to hold a dinosaur egg or a golf club). It was only then that "Dinah" became her official name. The Chamber of Commerce adopted Dinah (in burnt orange) as Vernal's cartoon mascot, and her silhouette now graces every street sign in town.

In 2007 Dinah's long-dormant eyeballs were re-electrified, and in 2014 Vernal gave the dinosaur a complete makeover, sandblasting her steel frame and resurfacing her fiberglass skin. Dinah was added to the National Register of Historic Places in late 2023. Six months later a runaway vehicle smashed through her tail, but it was quickly reattached, and Dinah was given a fresh coat of pink paint, a custom shade that Vernal now claims is unique to its senior citizen dinosaur.

Dinah in 1958. The photo suggests that her early skin was spotted, like a leopard.

Storm clouds fail to dim Dinah's concrete smile.