SOUTH BEND, IN - The man who built a chocolate company that is synonymous with South Bend, today renewed his commitment to establish a dinosaur museum here.
Some jokingly refer to Mark Tarner as “Jurassic Mark.”
Tarner has quietly amassed quite a collection of dinosaur bones in his spare time.
“I don’t golf, don’t have a vacation home. I just love to work, and with this, it gives you purpose, you know.”
Mark Tarner has spent the past 29-years building his business called the South Bend Chocolate Company.
28 of those years have been profitable but one of them was nearly devastating. “You know, the virus almost brought us to our knees, and if it hadn’t been for the federal government, we’d have been out of business,” Tarner said.
Today Tarner is back on his feet, showing off his femurs, tail bones, and vertebrae.
“It’s from the Morrison formation from the Jurassic and if you see here, I mean, this is part of the bones, I mean we have over 600.”
Tarner told WNDU-TV he has collected more than 600 bones that were found on private land he leases at a ranch in Montana. He said he typically spends about three weeks at the site each year and unearthed most of the bones himself.
“I think it’s really cool because you’re digging up these bones that have been covered up for at least 150 million years and this is the first time any human is seeing them," said paleontologist Stacie Skwarcan, who has been to the site the past three summers.
The bones are currently stored in warehouses in South Bend, waiting for Tarner's plan to pair his two passions - chocolate and dinosaurs - to come to fruition. He's planning to build museums for each on part of an 88-acre site near US 20 and the US 31 bypass in South Bend.
Tarner told WNDU his plan is for the dinosaur museum to be interactive, with children working on real bones.
"If we have fossilized turtles, I'm going to have real turtles. It's going to be half zoo," he said.
He believes the project could bring 100,000 visitors to South Bend when the museums are completed.
Tarner is expected to break ground on the museums in April 2022 and said he should have more details about the project in about a month.
We will continue to follow this story for more developments. And you can also follow the Indiana Dinosaur Museum Facebook page by visiting: https://www.facebook.com/indianadinosaurmuseum/
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