South Hadley, Massachusetts: Nash Dino Land (Closed)

Opened by Carlton and Edna Nash in 1939. Son Kornell kept the place going until he passed away in 2019.

This is a great little place to stop by. After driving by the sign for a year, I finally checked it out when my family was visiting. You can ease open layers of shale in the back yard quarry and may find 3-toed dinosaur footprints in them! The minerals and fossils in the store/display are great fun as well: dinosaur gizzards, fossilized dinosaur dung and dinosaur eggs, fossilized fish, ferns, and trilobites.

85-year-old Edna Nash had already closed up the store when we arrived after 4, but she was happy to let us in, and while we browsed, she chatted with us about going to nursing school in Chicago in 1938, her late husband starting this business around 1945, and other charming bits of history (of a different time scale).

Carlton S. Nash, founder of Nash Dinosaurland, died June 29 in South Hadley, MA....

NASH-ional Dinoland - I've talked to Nash's wife and she claims that her husband has found maybe a cure for leukemia but no one will listen. I've gone by this place for over 20 years and saw the signs and laughed. Let me tell you, I THINK THE GUY WAS ON TO SOMETHING AND NO ONE WOULD LISTEN!! Maybe someone should do some kind of study before the old man dies and takes all of his knowledge with him.

Seven years ago, I was in Northampton, MA and on a whim decided to find Nash Dino Land. After wandering around for an hour, on a backroad I saw several handpainted signs advertising genuine dinosaur footprints and a gift shop. There were also small folk-art style paintings of chickens, and signs reading, "Chickens Carry the Cure for Cancer! Find out What the Media and Medical Establishments Do not Want you to Know!" The signs increased in number and shrillness as I approached, then stopped abruptly near the garage/gift shop.

I dutifully honked until Carlton Nash came out. He seemed a bit of a lost sock, and told me that while it was too icy to climb up to the footprints, I could look inside the gift shop and see some photos. The gift shop contained lots of dusty old plastic things, some broken casts of prints, etc. I bought a plaster cast of a footprint and a plastic fossil keychain.

I asked about the chickens. Carlton brightened up and described in intimate detail the experiments he'd performed over the years, and his "miraculous discovery" that chickens could cure people of cancer. Apparently his chicken extract had cured him (or his wife, Phebe, I don't remember) of prostate (or ovarian) cancer. He spent years trying to get scientists to duplicate his results and reporters to cover the story. He asked if I knew any writers or reporters who could help get the word out. After about a half-hour of Carlton's chicken lecture, I left politely after promising to see what I could do about the chicken/cancer connection story.

I am now fulfilling my promise to Carlton Nash by alerting The Media (or at least Roadside America). Somehow I doubt this is what he had in mind.