DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the dinosaur tracks along the Paluxy River in Somervell County. Now settle in, because this story starts a little further back than most. A hundred million years ago — and I want you to sit with that number for a moment, because your brain will try to let it slide right past you and you cannot let it — a hundred million years ago, three kinds of dinosaurs were going about their considerable business in what would eventually become Texas.
And they left their marks. Literally. Right there in the limestone below the Paluxy River, tracks preserved like signatures in stone, waiting with the patience that only limestone can manage.
Three kinds of creatures made those tracks. There was Acrocanthosaurus, a meat-eater, which means wherever he was walkin', something else was runnin'. There was Camptosaurus, a plant-eater who left three-toed, bird-like tracks — dainty, almost, if you didn't know what made them.
And then there was Pleurocoelus, another plant-eater, who left huge five-toed prints, the kind that make you stop and recalibrate your sense of scale entirely. Now here's where the story takes a turn that only Texas could provide. Around 1910, somebody discovered these tracks.
And for years after that discovery, you know what they were? A novelty. A curiosity.
Something to point at. When the Paluxy River ran low, farmers would come out and catch catfish stranded in the dinosaur tracks. Catfish.
In footprints a hundred million years old. That's not a metaphor, that's just Tuesday in Somervell County. Then came 1938.
A prominent museum and several universities showed up and started excavating in earnest, and just like that, the tracks went from a good local story to front-page news for the whole world. All those years, all that limestone, all those catfish — and it turned out the Paluxy River had been quietly holding one of the most remarkable fossil records on the planet. A hundred million years of waiting, and it didn't go anywhere.
It just kept those tracks right where they were.
What the marker says
Formed 100,000,000 years ago, tracks of 3 kinds of dinosaurs are preserved in the limestone below Paluxy River. Types include Acrocanthosaurus (a meat-eater), Camptosaurus (plant-eater who left 3-toed bird-like tracks), and Pleurocoelus (a plant-eater who made huge 5-toed prints). For years following their discovery (about 1910), the tracks remained a novelty. When Paluxy River ran low, farmers caught catfish stranded in them. Excavations by a prominent museum and several universities in 1938 brought the tracks to the attention of the world. (1970)