As large crowds of onlookers toured the Wyoming State Mineral and Gem Show in Powell, many were thrilled to be greeted by a life-size cast of an impressive camarasaurus head, once common to the Cowboy State.

It was impossible to pass by without close inspection of the head of the long-necked beast that stretched 50- to 60-feet. Talk about your local charismatic critters.

Wyoming first became a hotspot for dinosaur research in the late-19th century with the discovery of dinosaurs wonderfully preserved in the Morrison Formation. According to the National Park Service, the formation contains the majority of the dinosaur fossils found in the West.

By the early 20th century, hundreds of tons of dinosaur fossils had been excavated from Wyoming and shipped off to major museums around the world. Unfortunately, only a few remained in the state.

Now, a retired geologist is proposing the return of dinosaurs common to northwest Wyoming and starting from scratch to build a new home for Greybull’s Big Horn Basin Dinosaur and Geoscience Museum, which recently closed its doors.

“We're putting all of our focus in getting money and materials together for a brand new museum,” said Erik Kvale, who has a doctorate in geology.

The organization is almost to the halfway point of fundraising efforts to get construction of the museum started. The City of Greybull is also applying for state grants for the 3,000-square-foot facility.

“Our group is responsible for getting all the materials to put inside the new structure,” Kvale said. “We’re trying to bring back our most iconic dinosaurs.”

The museum is attempting to purchase casts from the original fossils. Originals would cost many millions of dollars, he said, if they could be found for sale. But the casts look and feel like the real thing. The museum is trying to get several full body mounts in an effort to tell the story of the Big Horn Basin.

They are also working with the Smithsonian Institute to get a cast of the only  allosaurus nest ever found; discovered in the Greybull/Shell area.

Greybull has long been known for its late-Jurassic period wildlife. The town’s junior high school even used to be known as the Fighting Dinosaurs until the late 50s when the word dinosaur took on a somewhat negative connotation.

“If you want to insult somebody, you told them they was like a dinosaur,” he said of the days when space travel was being first seriously explored.

One of the museum’s relics is a relatively young (compared to fossils) 1944 Greybull Junior High School banner.

The group, which includes Kvale, president of the museum, and directors Angela Botzer and Bill Hayes, also want to delve into the histories of the scientists who first came to the region and made mind-bending discoveries — like Barnum Brown, fossil collector for the American Museum of Natural History who discovered the first skeleton of tyrannosaurus rex just north of the Wyoming border in 1902. Six years later, Brown discovered a nearly complete T. rex skeleton at Big Dry Creek, Montana, according to the museum.

The plan is to construct the museum on an empty lot right next to the recently renovated Greybull Museum. Kvale hopes to order casts, which can take up to two years to produce, while the facility finds grants and donations prior to the groundbreaking ceremony and erection of the new space.

Kvale’s family is from the Shell Canyon area and he graduated from the University of Wyoming prior to getting his doctorate at Iowa State, which has a field study area just outside his family’s property. His family started a dude ranch in the 1920s, exploring Shell Canyon. While operating the dude ranch, many paleontologists and  geologists from Ivy League colleges and the U.S. Geological Survey did field research near the ranch, inspiring Kvale.

His talk on the plant life of the Big Horn Basin in the late-Jurassic period was one of several sponsored by show organizers, including the Shoshone Rock Club of Powell and the Cody 59ers Rock Club. Powell rockhounds produced numerous displays, including obsidian flint-napping by Dan Dalton and rock polishing by “Lapidary” Gary Olson for more than 1,000 in attendance.

The money raised will fund future projects, said Ilene Olson, the show’s public relations officer.

“It was a good show and it was gratifying to see all of our hard work being seen by those in attendance,” Olson said.

For more information about the museum: bighornbasindinos.org