Dinosaur Kingdom II, also known as the Escape From Dinosaur Kingdom, is a quirky, unique tourist attraction in the town of Natural Bridge, Virginia. It is far from the popular dinosaur parks kids and their parents flock to. It consists of statues of dinosaurs attacking the soldiers of the Union Army. There are thirty fiberglass dinosaur statues, a number of figures of Union soldiers, and several other characters, such as the statue of Abraham Lincoln and of a gorilla in a cowboy hat. Dinosaur Kingdom, which opened in 2005, is the work of local artist Mark Cline. The story that the artist created is of the dinosaurs that were discovered in Virginia in 1863; and that the Union Army attempted to use them as weapons, but the dinosaurs turned on them. Cline’s inspiration for the bizarre park comes from his visit to the Dinosaur Land park in White Post, Virginia as a young boy, and from the movie The Valley of Gwangi, in which cowboys discovered living dinosaurs in a Mexican valley.
5781 S Lee Hwy, Natural Bridge, VA 24578, Phone: 540-464-2253