The park is located just north of Moab
In 2021, Utahraptor State Park was designated by the state legislature. The boundaries of the park north of Moab will cover 7,466 acres, encompassing existing trails like the Sovereign Trail system and Fallen Peace Officer Trail, the historic site of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp that was used as a Japanese Isolation Center during World War II, and valuable paleontological sites—the first fossils of Utahraptors, now the official state dinosaur, were found in the area.
On Monday, September 25, construction officials broke ground at the park.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Josh Hansen, the park’s manager with the Department of Natural Resources, at the groundbreaking event. “I’ve held my breath waiting for construction to start and passed out a total of five times.”
The official entrance to the park will be in between the existing Dalton Wells and Willow Springs roads. In addition to recreational opportunities like hiking and motorized trails, the park will include a campground with 60 full hookup sites and 30 tent and car sites with fire rings and picnic tables. There also will be housing for park employees onsite.
The visitor center will have displays on the park’s history: there will be a full-sized replica of the Utahraptor skeleton, and maps and photographs of the historical site. The visitor’s center will compare the lives of CCC people to those who were later imprisoned at the site by gathering photographs and written accounts.
The park was praised at the event by local leaders including County Commissioner Bill Winfield and Lee Shenton with the local Utah Friends of Paleontology chapter. Tony Mancuso, the local lands coordinator for the Utah DNR’s Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands, said that he recognized the area as a potential state park in 2017, when he was first introduced to it.
“It took five, six years of talking and convincing, and a laundry list of people, too many to name off the top of my head, who had the tenacity and the willingness to see a diamond in the rough,” Mancuso said. “We’ve been calling for this for quite a long time, and I’m incredibly grateful to be here to see it happen.”
Jeff Rasmussen, the director of all Utah State Parks, said the groundbreaking “couldn’t come at a better time for Utah State Parks, as well as for outdoor recreation.”
“We need more facilities to be able to accommodate that tremendous use that has come to outdoor recreation in Utah,” Rasmussen said. “This project is going to help us do that in a really big way … this site has had a lot of trouble with just too much use and very little development to accommodate it.”
“I look forward to seeing you all hopefully in about a year to cut the ribbon on this new facility,” he said.
