One of the more unusual sightings along the way during the 1950s and 1960s was a cement-cast dinosaur on the side of Route 5 in Smith’s Ferry. There is not much information on this, which has led to some theories about its origin and purpose. This installment will not answer all the questions, but it will provide additional details.
South Hadley resident Carlton Nash was a well-known harvester and seller of prehistoric dinosaur tracks. He attended Amherst College, where his father, George Nash, graduated. Carlton Nash became fascinated with dinosaurs at a very young age after hearing tales about local farmer Pliny Moody and Edward Hitchcock, an Amherst College professor who was the state geologist. He was also fond of visiting the Beneski Museum of Natural History on the Amherst College campus, where many dinosaur artifacts were displayed.
He started collecting dinosaur tracks in 1931. In 1933, he located a dinosaur track quarry near his home in Granby. The owners did not want to sell the land to Mr. Nash at the time, but in 1939, he did purchase the land on which the quarry was situated. Between 1933 and 1939, he collected over 1,000 imprints ranging from 3/4 of an inch to 28 feet long. He and his wife, Phoebe (Wright) Nash, would also travel throughout the country in search of dinosaur tracks.
As an aside, a 1936 newspaper article featured Carlton Nash and his brother Harlan Nash operating a place of business selling Christmas Trees at the corner of Main and Middle streets in Holyoke.
In 1947, Carlton Nash spent a month constructing replicas of a 10-foot dinosaur and another 6 weeks creating a second 25-foot dinosaur. The frame was made of steel, and the exterior was concrete. The two statues stood on Northampton Highway, in what was informally called Dinosaur Park, on the approach to Mt. Tom junction, near the Easthampton line.
Mr. Nash placed the dinosaurs along the highway as an advertisement for his Dinoland exhibit and store in Granby, Massachusetts. Research performed at the Hampden County Registry of Deeds online did not show Mr. Nash with Holyoke real estate holdings. The Price & Lee Holyoke City Directories do not hint at the park or Mr. Nash.
Mr. Nash made at least one other replica in 1952, which he placed at the corner of Amherst Road and Aldrich Street in South Hadley to attract visitors to Dinoland.
In April 1955, the platform on which the statue was built either collapsed or was toppled by vandals. Within 3 months, Mr. Nash built a 2.5-ton, more detailed replacement model for Dinosaur Park.
Photos of the two dinosaurs, one much leaner in appearance than the other, are shown in the array below. It appears from the pictures of the leaner dinosaur that it was placed at the edge of a parking area. There seem to be concrete guardrail supports in the photograph’s background, leading uphill from right to left, possibly Smith’s Ferry Road.
Additionally, a September 18, 1973, news article, shown below, indicates that the dinosaur park was located opposite the Mt. Tom Power Plant. At the time of the writing, the replica’s status was that it was “long since been destroyed by vandals.”
Citations:
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Citations: Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript & Transcript-Telegram; Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican; publication dates and pages are shown.
Ancestry.com (paid subscription): Price & Lee Holyoke, Massachusetts, City Directories
Hampden County Registry of Deeds, Springfield, Massachusetts
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