Carlton S. Nash, founder of Nash Dinosaurland, died June 29 in South Hadley, MA. Nash was discoverer, curator and owner of the World's Largest Dinosaur Footprint Quarry. Nash discovered the two acre quarry in Granby in 1933, acquired the property and opened Nash Dinosaurland (also known as Nash Dino Land) in 1939, which he owned and operated for more than 50 years.

He sold thousands of dinosaur tracks to people, including General George S.Patton and Dale Carnegie -- a practice that would have been discouraged had the land been under state or federal government control. But, as Carlton used to say, "No home is complete without dinosaur tracks about it."

His business took him and his family on many expeditions to the Rocky Mountains and places such as Como Bluffs, WY -- near the House Made From Dinosaur Bones. But his favorite stomping ground was at the South Hadley dig. Nash Dinosaurland was the only place in the world you could see the largest Triassic Period footprint, the only Ganoid Fish ever found on dinosaur track layers, and the earliest coelacanth fish ever discovered with antennae. From the souvenir shop, Nash would issue Dinosaur Hunting Licenses (for Bow and Arrow) to visitors.

A graduate of South Hadley High School, he studied at Amherst College and the University of Colorado. He was honored in 1985 by the Massachusetts Teachers Association as one of the 40 notable graduates of the state's public schools. He was a member of Church of Christ Congregational in Granby, where he was a youth leader, Sunday school teacher and deacon. He had served on the 4-H Club Town Committee, and had coached little league baseball.

In recent years, Carlton promoted to Dino Land visitors a cure for cancer he had devised that involved chickens.

He leaves his wife, Phebe Nash; three sons, two sisters, a brother, and three grandsons.

[08/21/1997]