This Texas riverbed has 113-million-year-old dinosaur footprints you can touch

They’re real, and you can walk in them

About an hour southwest of Fort Worth, the Paluxy River cuts through a 1,524-acre park that holds some of the best-preserved dinosaur tracks on the planet.

Dinosaur Valley State Park sits near the small town of Glen Rose, and the footprints pressed into the riverbed limestone go back 113 million years to the Early Cretaceous.

This part of Texas was once shoreline along a vast inland sea. Dinosaurs crossed the muddy tidal flats here, and the mud kept their tracks.

What those prints tell us changed what scientists thought they knew about dinosaurs.

A boy found three-toed tracks after a flood

In 1909, a kid named George Adams spotted large three-toed prints in the Paluxy riverbed. A major flood the year before had scraped away enough sediment to expose them.

Almost 30 years later, paleontologist R.T. Bird from the American Museum of Natural History heard about the tracks and came to Glen Rose.

Bird found something nobody had seen before: huge, basin-shaped footprints from a sauropod. No one had ever identified sauropod tracks anywhere in the world until that moment.

The discovery proved these massive animals walked on land under their own power, and it put Glen Rose on the map.

A 44-ton plant eater and its predator

Two types of dinosaurs left their mark across the park.

The large, round prints that look like elephant tracks came from Sauroposeidon proteles, a plant-eating sauropod that stretched about 70 feet long, stood 13 feet at the hip, and weighed up to 44 tons. Texas made it the official state dinosaur.

The smaller, three-toed tracks belong to the Acrocanthosaurus, a meat eater that stood 20 feet tall and ran 30 feet long. It weighed three to five tons and hunted along the same flats.

The Ballroom looks like the dinosaurs were dancing

Five main track sites spread across the Paluxy riverbed, and you can reach all of them on foot. The Main Track Site is the easiest to get to, with both sauropod and theropod prints visible in the stone.

The Ballroom is the largest, and it got its name because the tracks point in every direction. Nine sauropod prints there measure 36 inches long, with mud swells that still rise eight inches above the surface.

Smaller juvenile tracks at the Ballroom show a young sauropod being chased by a predator.

Over at the Lone Ranger Site, you can follow the longest unbroken theropod trail in the park, stretching more than 350 feet.

Two World’s Fair dinosaurs guard the entrance

Right near the park entrance, two life-size fiberglass dinosaur models stand watch: a 70-foot Apatosaurus and a 45-foot Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Sinclair Oil Company hired sculptor Louis Paul Jonas to build them for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. They were the centerpiece of Sinclair’s Dinoland exhibit, which pulled in millions of visitors.

When the fair ended, Sinclair donated the models to the park in 1970. They’ve been greeting people at the gate ever since.

Twenty miles of trails along limestone ledges

More than 20 miles of multi-use trails wind through the park, open to hikers, mountain bikers, and horseback riders. The paths cross wooded ridges and follow limestone ledges above the Paluxy River valley.

The Black-Capped Vireo Trail takes you through cedar-filled woodlands on a moderate route. The Limestone Ledge Trail puts you on high rock outcroppings with views down to the river.

If you want a quick payoff, the Overlook Trail leads to a lookout above a bend in the Paluxy. The Denio Creek Trail follows a creek bed through rolling hills where you might spot rare birds along the way.

Cool off in a 20-foot-deep river hole

After a morning on the trails, Blue Hole is the place to go.

This deep stretch of the Paluxy drops about 20 feet and the water runs clear, with rocky banks all around you. If you’d rather stay shallow, you can wade through calmer sections of the river just downstream.

The park store rents kayaks for paddling the Paluxy, and fishing is solid here too. Flathead catfish, channel catfish, bass, and bluegill all live in the river.

A yellow-cheeked warbler breeds nowhere else but Texas

The endangered golden-cheeked warbler nests in the park from March through July.

This small bird, with bright yellow cheeks and a black throat, breeds only in Texas and nowhere else on Earth. It builds nests from strips of Ashe juniper bark in the park’s juniper-oak woodlands.

The black-capped vireo, another rare species, also nests here during spring and summer. The park sits along the Great Texas Wildlife Trails, and it draws birders from across the country.

You can borrow a birding kit from the park that comes with binoculars and a pocket checklist.

Deer, bobcats, and bass in every direction

White-tailed deer move through the park all day, and you’ll likely spot a few before you finish your first trail. Coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, and armadillos also live in the brush.

Several species of lizards and snakes make their home in the rocky terrain. Down in the Paluxy, you’ll find largemouth bass, bluegill, and yellow and channel catfish.

The park sits where several ecoregions meet, so the mix of life runs wide. Bottomland areas along the river grow elm, pecan, sycamore, and cottonwood trees.

Kids can earn a ranger badge on the trail

Rangers run programs on dinosaur tracks, stargazing, and wildlife observation throughout the year. You can also sign up for workshops on archery, fishing, and geocaching.

Kids can borrow a Junior Ranger Explorer Pack and work toward earning a ranger badge while they hike. The park’s interpretive center has exhibits that walk you through the geology and history behind the tracks.

A free smartphone app for both Apple and Android gives you a guide to the park right in your pocket.

Ancient seashells turned this mud to stone

The landscape here is hilly limestone, carved over millions of years by the Paluxy River, a tributary of the Brazos.

The rock layers belong to the Glen Rose Formation from the Early Cretaceous, made up of limestone, sandstone, and mudstone.

Calcium carbonate in the mud came from the shells of ancient crustaceans that lived in the shallow sea. Plant-eating dinosaurs came to browse tropical palms and conifers that grew along the shore.

Meat eaters followed to hunt them, and both left their prints in the soft mud.

Glen Rose calls itself the Dinosaur Capital of Texas

The Texas state legislature made it official: Glen Rose is the Dinosaur Capital of Texas.

The small town sits in Somervell County, about 90 minutes from Dallas, and it started as a trading post in 1849 along the Paluxy River.

You can walk the town square and stop by Barnard’s Mill and Art Museum or the Somervell County Museum to dig deeper into the area’s history.

The park earned its designation as a National Natural Landmark in 1968 and opened to the public in 1972.

Walk the tracks at Dinosaur Valley State Park

You can stand in a 113-million-year-old dinosaur footprint at Dinosaur Valley State Park, located at 1629 Park Road 59 in Glen Rose, Texas.

The park opens daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and day use costs $8 per person aged 13 and older. Book ahead, because the park hits capacity often.

The tracks sit in the riverbed, so water levels affect what you can see. Check conditions on the official website before you drive out.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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