Spray-foam pioneer Larry Wilson noted for dino-scape
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Man who gained national attention with effigy of bin Laden in mouth of T-Rex dies at 70
6/14/2008 - 6/15/08
Larry Wilson, who gained national attention in 2001 when he stuffed an effigy of Osama bin Laden in the mouth of a tyrannosaurus rex sculpture outside his spray-foam insulation shop east of Interstate 25 and the Cerrillos Road exit, died Saturday at age 70.
Wilson, who founded Thermal Coatings & Insulation in 1977, began to build his own small Jurassic Park in the late 1980s. Using welded rebar covered with screen-door wire, Wilson created the skeletons, then fashioned the musculature with the same polyurethane foam that his company used to insulate roofs and walls.
The foam dinos — a 14-foot-tall tyrannosaurus rex being roped by a cowboy, a brontosaurus that is 52 feet long, a stegosaurus in a livestock pen and a winged pterodactyl — became a wintertime hobby and an advertisement for his business.
According to his granddaughter, Leslie Martinez, he was motivated to create the dinosaurs after watching the animated film The Land Before Time and by the request of his granddaughters to build them a dinosaur. Everyone "expected it to be a little dinosaur, and he decided that it would be more fun to make a great big on," she said.
Martinez said schools brought children on field trips to see the dinosaurs, and tourists would stop there before or after visiting historic downtown Santa Fe.
Wilson took the bin Laden effigy down after a month — after creating a lot of controversy — and eventually sold a number of the dinosaurs. A brontosaurus family is all that remains at the site.
Wilson also made foam boulders for movie sets and for home landscaping. He drew from his bronc-riding youth to make wood carvings and bronze sculptures. And he created the foam figures used to cast the statues of Snow White's seven dwarfs for the roof of the Disney California headquarters and for a statue at the Albuquerque Airport.
Dinosaur Trail, which runs along I-25 east of Richards Avenue, is named after Wilson's efforts.
A native of Grants who grew up in Los Alamos, Wilson was a highway patrol officer in Anaheim, Calif. After he was injured on duty, he moved his family to New Mexico, where he worked with a company to help develop Cochiti Lake before starting TC&I. He was a pioneer in building sprayed-foam roofs, according to his family.
Wilson and his wife, Nancy, had two sons, Les and Ricky, and a daughter, Leanna. He is also survived by grandsons, Dan, Danny and Eric; granddaughters, Leslie, Channel and Becca; great-grandson, Cole; and great-granddaughters, Mia and Navada.
Grandson Calvin, with whom Wilson liked to go trap shooting and fishing, died in a motorcycle accident in May. A great-grandson, Evan, died in February.
"He was tough, but he was also fun," Leslie Martinez said of her grandfather, adding that, after all, "He made his granddaughters the dinosaurs." He also had a strong work ethic, she said, "and instilled that in all of us."
Services for Wilson will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the dinosaurs. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the family church, Church Alive, 1622 Agua Dulce Drive SE, Rio Rancho, NM 87124.
Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com.
