Black Hills Institute

Yesterday, I went to The Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in Hill City South Dakota, and it's awesome!!! It's only a three room museum (the mineral room, the fossil room and the gift shop) but its great. When I picture what I would really want my own museum to be like, I picture something like that. It is the former home of Sue the T. Rex and is the perminant home of Stan of the same species as well as several other Tyrannosaurs of various nick names. Generally, I think t sucks that they had Sue taken away by the FBI and then sold to another museum for $8.3 million (all procedes going to the guy who was leasing the land from the Soix). The institute saw no money from that sale despite the fact that they gave the guy $5000 to dig on his land, and pumped thousands more into its excavation and partial preparation. In spite of this, and the fact that the owners both did some jail time for alleged fossil poaching, the institute seems to be doing ok. The skull of Stan is quite possibly the best preserved dinosaur skull I have ever seen. Ironically, they also have a cast on display of MOR 555. I can't imagine it should have been too hard for the Chicago field museum to sell them or even give them a cast of Sue. The Institute should have at least have been offered a discount (you know, for finding the damn thing!!!). They've also got awesome displays of lagerstaten fossils from the Green River Formation, Lebanon (Yay lebanese fossil exports) and the Solenhofren, Germany. They've also got the biggest, best preserved Euriptyerid I've ever seen.
I highly recomend a visit to any avid fossil nerd. Admission is free but please give them a donation. They've earned it.