PALEONTOLOGIST WANTS DINOSAUR MUSEUM FOR MARBLE HILL

Guy Darrough's fossil collection includes these snails from the Ozarks, which date bac, 450 to 500 million years.

MARBLE HILL -- Guy Darrough spends much of his time digging for dinosaurs and other fossils of long-ago life.

When he's not unearthing fossils, the self-taught paleontologist builds realistic, fiberglass dinosaur models for museum exhibits. He operates Lost World Studios and showcases some of his work on the Internet.

In recent years, the 47-year-old Arnold man has been digging up evidence of dinosaurs at a site near Glen Allen in Bollinger County. Darrough said the site is the only known dinosaur site in the Midwest.

Darrough and his team of fossil enthusiasts have uncovered the bones of a duck-billed dinosaur and the teeth of a Tyrannosaurus. The site also has turned up freshwater sharks, crocodiles and lots of turtles, dating back 65 to 70 million years ago.

Darrough wants to establish a dinosaur and natural history museum in Marble Hill to house his fossils, a working laboratory, dinosaur models and other artifacts.

He has proposed setting up the museum in a 76-year-old brick building. The three-story structure was built as the art and science building for Will Mayfield College, a Baptist high school and two-year college that closed in 1934.

El Nathan Home Inc., which operates a retirement home on the property, owns the vacant building.

Civic leaders like car dealer Dave Thomas see the museum as a way to preserve the historic building.

"It is exciting because it could be one of the biggest drawing cards in Southeast Missouri," he said. "There is no dinosaur museum in the state."

Thomas said the museum also could house Indian relics, Mayfield College memorabilia and other items of Bollinger County history.

Civic leaders sought to interest Southeast Missouri State University in setting up a higher education center in the building a year and a half ago. But the university didn't want to own it or renovate it.

Dr. Ken Dobbins, Southeast's president, said it would be expensive to renovate the old building for classrooms. He questioned if the population or industry base is large enough to justify an outreach center in Marble Hill.

Like the university, Darrough wants the community to renovate the Mayfield College building.

But unlike the university, Darrough believes the building can be renovated without a huge expense using volunteer labor.

He envisions more than a dinosaur museum, although dinosaur bones and perhaps "a whole skeleton" would figure prominently in the operation, along with a large display of life-size dinosaur models.

"It's just going to show really the history of life on Earth," said Darrough, who has a wealth of fossils and artifacts he wants to display. "It really would be the Smithsonian of the Ozarks."

Darrough, whose collection of fossils includes tiny shell fish that lived 500 million years ago, said the museum could be a big draw for the county.

Besides fossils, Darrough has a collection of antique, hand-blown bottles that he has rescued from construction sites in St. Louis. He also has unearthed clay pipes, dating back to the mid-1700s.

Darrough said the museum could include Civil War and riverboat artifacts too.

But dinosaurs would be the big draw. Darrough wants the museum to house a working laboratory where he and others could study the fossils they unearth at the dinosaur dig site. The laboratory could be built behind a wall of glass, allowing visitors to view their work, he said.

The dinosaur site is on several acres of land near Glen Allen that was once owned by the Chronister family. Dinosaur bones were first unearthed there accidentally in 1942 when a well was being dug. The bones ended up in the Smithsonian. In exchange, Lulu Chronister reportedly received $50 to buy a cow, Darrough said.

The old farm house now serves as a bunkhouse for Darrough and his team of fossil hunters. A greenhouse sits over the dig site, which extends down about nine feet below the surface.

"Nobody knows exactly why it is there," said Darrough. "Some people believe that the ground dropped as a result of an earthquake.

The bones are well preserved largely because of the bluish clay that surrounds them, he said.

Darrough first began excavating the site about nine years ago. But it's only been in the past few years that the project has really taken off.

Last year, Darrough established the Missouri Ozark Dinosaur Project Inc.., a non-profit organization, to systematically excavate the site.

Darrough envisions promoting the museum through a Web site. A gift shop could sell ceramic ware made out of clay from the site. The clay is filled with dinosaur bone fragments. The glazed product could be sold as "dinoware," he said.

Darrough said people would visit the museum even though it isn't right off Interstate 55. "There are a lot of people that will travel to see certain things," he said.

Small museums, Darrough said, don't make a lot of money. But he said there's no reason it couldn't be profitable.

Darrough said he hopes the Marble Hill community will jump at the chance for a museum. "I have spent my entire life building up for a museum," he said.