Dinosaurs Looking For Place to Roam in Region

Could Southern Illinois become host to the world's largest dinosaur museum? That's what one pair of developers, CM Studio, is considering for Collinsville.

BENLD — Charlie McGrady peddled his dinosaurs one daspletosaurus at a time. But, he figured, there had to be a better way.

Fifteen years ago, he gave up a bank job on Wall Street to focus on dinosaur sculpting, a skill that started as untrained tinkering and took off from there.

Since then, he and Brian Page, who is his partner and nephew, have built about 600 life-size, lifelike dinosaurs and sold them to museums and businesses around the world. Now, the partners are looking for a place of their own.

They want to build in Collinsville the world's largest museum devoted to dinosaurs. The team is working on designs for a $2.5 million complex that would feature 100 dinosaurs, 50 skeletons and a theater in a 25,000-square-foot building.

Check out the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for the rest of the story.