Dinosaur Valley State Park

People lived on this stretch of the Paluxy River for about 6,000 years before Europeans came, probably ancestors of the Tonkawa, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife. Wichita groups moved south in the 1700s, and a large Comanche band known as the "Honey-Eaters" wintered under the limestone bluffs, out of the north wind.

About 113 million years ago this was the edge of an advancing and retreating sea, and the limey mud of the tidal flats took tracks. A flood in 1908 may have uncovered the three-toed ones; a nine-year-old, George Adams, found them in 1909. In 1937 R. T. Bird, collecting for the American Museum of Natural History, found the first distinct sauropod tracks, which showed scientists that these giants walked on four legs. The park believes the sauropod tracks belong to Sauroposeidon and the theropod tracks to Acrocanthosaurus.

The Handbook of Texas says the department established the park in 1969; the park's own history says it opened in 1972, and the National Park Service has named it a National Natural Landmark. Fiberglass models of an Apatosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus rex, made for the 1964-65 New York World's Fair, were given to the park in 1970. The tracks lie in the riverbed and are not always visible, so check trail and track conditions with the park before you drive out.