Dinosaur Gardens in Ossineke

Just south of Alpena, in the little community of Ossineke, a forest full of life-size dinosaurs has been startling and delighting travelers since the 1930s. Dinosaur Gardens is one of Michigan’s great roadside attractions, and it’s the work of a single determined man.

His name was Paul Domke, a self-taught artist who bought forty acres of swampy, fern-filled woods here because it looked, to him, like the kind of place dinosaurs once roamed. Starting in 1935, he spent decades sculpting some two dozen giant creatures out of concrete, building each one over a steel frame. Fittingly for this part of Michigan, he perfected his weatherproof formula with help from the local cement company, the same industry that built Alpena.

Domke was also a devout man, and he wove his faith right into the park: a thirty-foot statue of Jesus holding the world greets you near the entrance, and inside the belly of one enormous dinosaur you’ll find a heart-shaped shrine. It’s a one-of-a-kind mix of the prehistoric and the personal, lovingly kept up by its current owners. The trails are open through the warmer months. You can plan a visit at dinosaurgardensllc.com.