South Bend's Indiana Dinosaur Museum opens as the culmination of digging and dreaming

SOUTH BEND — More than 50 visitors came to the Indiana Dinosaur Museum on opening day, their celebration a culmination of founder Mark Tarner’s vision.

The museum displays massive skeletons of spinosauruses and other dinosaurs, sand pits with real fossils in them so visitors can dig and get a feel for the work paleontologists do, bones that Tarner and his team dug up from Montana, and exhibits explaining the connection between dinosaurs and evolution.

The 90-acre complex located near the South Bend International Airport is also home to Tarner’s other business, the South Bend Chocolate Co.’s factory, a farm with bison and goats, and a new restaurant.

‘A natural obsession’

Abby Kurnyak’s 4-year-old son, Easton, was one of the many young children who attended the museum’s opening.

“I think it's a natural obsession for most little ones … he likes to check out lots of dinosaur books in the library and loves dinosaur toys, so this is the greatest thing ever for him,” Kurnyak said.

Easton said he enjoyed looking at the life-size models of a T-Rex and the veiled chameleon and pythons in the display cases. Kurnyak, who is a middle school science teacher at The Stanley Clark School, said she appreciated the educational value of the museum.

“The paleontology laboratory is really cool," she said. "And I like all of the docents that are coming around, teaching everybody about the exhibits.”

Rowan Haner celebrated his fifth birthday with a visit to the museum on opening day.

“His favorite action movie since age 2 or 3 has been ‘Jurassic Park,’” Rowan’s mother, Stephanie Haner, said, “so we took a trip down to Myrtle Beach (in South Carolina) and they had an interactive dinosaur exhibit down there that he just loved.”

Haner said that Rowan has learned how to identify different dinosaur species since then. “It's nice to have something closer to home where he can learn more,” she said.

Making learning fun

Michael Arney, one of the docents working at the paleontology laboratory section of the museum, spent the morning of opening day telling visitors how paleontologists preserved dinosaur bones by wrapping them in tin foil and plaster burlap. He showed them different sections of vertebrae pointing out where some rock had still not been separated from the bone and explaining how scientists used this information to estimate how old certain bones are.

“Being that beacon for kids and being able to answer their questions makes me happy … because I remember what it's like to be a kid trying to learn all that I can about dinosaurs and digging,” Arney said.

In addition to docents explaining different exhibits, the museum also has tablets where visitors can click through to explore the connections between different species. There are also physical displays explaining the answers to interesting questions about evolution, such as “How does wood turn into stone” and “How a turtle got its shell.”

‘Digging and dreams’

Blue Lane is a member of the Michiana Gem and Mineral Society, a geology club in the region that Tarner is also a part of. She said she particularly enjoyed the interactive digging exhibits, which were reminiscent of club field trips she took to South Dakota to see fluorescent phosphate rocks and Southern Indiana to see geodes.

“This museum just reminds me of why I love rocks … you look at a dinosaur and you can just see how amazing nature's creations are,” Lane said.

Tarner said the idea for the museum was sparked back when his oldest daughter wanted to go out West to find dinosaur bones when she was around 12 years old.

“This opening day," Tarner said, "has been the climax of 23 years of digging and dreams.”

Email Tribune staff writer Angela Mathew at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend's Indiana Dinosaur Museum displays bones, fossils and more