The Creston Dinosaur: Bernie Harberts on the Atlas Obscura Podcast

I, Bernie Harberts, did not use generative AI to write or illustrate this article. Spell check and grammar check, yes. AI, no.

In 2008, my mule Polly and I traveled from Canada to the Mexican border in a homemade mule wagon. I interviewed folks along the way, and one of the favorite characters I met wasn’t a person. It was a giant green cement dinosaur outside Creston, South Dakota.

Flash forward to now. Recently Atlas Obscura, the website dedicated to obscure Americana, contacted me about doing a story about the Creston dinosaur. I spoke with one of their contributors, Johanna Mayer, and a few weeks later, the site aired a great piece about the Creston dinosaur. It’s narrated by Atlas Obscura co-founder Dylan Thuras, who said, “And then I saw a big-assed dinosaur” even better than I did when I originally did an audio recording about the Creston dinosaur.

Click on the audio player below to listen to the story on Atlas Obscura.

Thanks

Thanks to Johanna Mayer, Dylan Thuras and everyone at Atlas Obscura who took what I told them and turned it into such a great piece. I liked the small touches including the bit about how the man that built the dino used to grow the largest cabbages around.

More on mule Polly’s and my Visit With the Creston Dinosaur

Here are two links you might enjoy about the wagon journey mule Polly and I took across America:

• Watch the “Lost Sea Expedition,” the documentary I filmed about our voyage. The series premiered on Rocky Mountain PBS. Stream the Lost Sea Expedition free on YouTube.
• Read the original post from when I visited the Creston dinosaur with my wagon here.

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Stream The Lost Sea Expedition

I filmed mule Polly’s and my covered wagon journey from Canada to Mexico. That footage became The Lost Sea Expedition, a documentary series that premiered on Rocky Mountain PBS. You can stream it free on YouTube.

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