Alpine, California: Dinosaur Land Remains

Bob the Dinosaur is still around, but is hard to find. It seems the trailer park around him has gotten larger. A lot of people in Alpine have never heard of him; we thought he would be visible by the road, but you have to drive deep into the trailer park. You will see a house to your left with a little road to drive into that could be a driveway. We were hesitant to take it because we thought it was private. But we drove in and there Bob was. There's a gate in front of him now, because people cut a hole in his belly and were living inside...that is what the guy who opened the gate for me told me! Bob was decorated for the holidays.

So when you get to Alpine drive into the trailer park and look around for a driveway that seems to go into the woods.

Regarding Dinosaur Park in Alpine, CA: It was originally called Dinosaur Land and was built in 1962 to be an amusement park. It was scheduled to have a roller coaster shaped like a volcano, life-size dinosaur statues, water rides, dinosaur "characters" roaming the park, and restaurants. It went bankrupt within two years, and all that remains is "Dinosaur Bob." He looks like a brontosaurus whose neck broke at one time or another. Dinosaur Land is now a mobile home park located on Alpine Blvd. You can still see Dinosaur Bob - I'm a 3rd grade teacher in Alpine and he's part of our historical tour of Alpine each year!

I was raised in Alpine, CA. For years we had a few landmarks that we just got used to -- a fiberglass horse out in front of the fiberglass plant, a fiberglass gorilla on top of the Log Cabin restaurant, and my favorite -- two huge dinosaurs looming off the north side of Alpine Blvd. The remains of a defunct dinosaur amusement park (Alpine Blvd was Olde Hwy. 80 before the new freeway came through), the dinos were in an enclosure with a huge wrought iron, creepy looking gate, and they had grass grown up tall all around them. There was a triceratops in the back, but the biggest one in front was a brontosaurus. As years of weather destroyed the monster, it came to have crawdads living in the water that had accumulated where it's stomach should have been, and we would sneak in and catch them. It was a very satisfying sight, having a dinosaur right in town. Years later, a nursery took over that land, but I don't know what is there today.