South Dakota Attorney Lawyer

Whenever he is in Chicago, South Dakota businessman Peter Larson finds time to go stare from afar upon the love of his life, a putative female who left him in the lurch a decade ago, breaking his heart, his bank account and sending him to prison.

Larson, 50, has the rugged, weatherbeaten look of a cowboy both in dress and demeanor, but the genial sparkle in his deeply lined, searching eyes reveals a forgiving spirit.

“This is the perfect place for her,” Larson said as he looked affectionately upon his lost love during a recent visit to the Field Museum. “She belongs in a place like the Field.”

The business Larson and his brother, Neal, are in is prospecting for dinosaur fossils, then preparing and mounting the bones for display.

The object of his affection at the Field was Sue, the Tyrannosaurus rex fossil his business owned for two years after one of his prospectors, Susan Hendrickson, found it on what he thought was the private land of a South Dakota rancher in 1990.

Who owned the land became the question of a bitter federal court case, however, one that traces its origins to a long-standing battle between academic paleontologists and commercial bone hunters like the Larsons.

Peter Larson and his ex-wife, Kristin Donnan, talked about the triumph and travail that has engulfed the famous fossil when they were in town publicizing the book they have co-authored, “Rex Appeal” (Invisible Cities Press, $26.95).

The Larsons’ company, the Black Hills Institute, in Hill City, S.D., is renowned as one of the three most skilled fossil preparation laboratories in the world.

Before 1990, there were only 12 T. rex specimens known to science, none with more than 45 percent of its bones. Since 1990, 24 more have been found. Black Hills Institute prospectors found seven of them, including the two most complete skeletons ever.
Whenever he is in Chicago, South Dakota businessman Peter Larson finds time to go stare from afar upon the love of his life, a putative female who left him in the lurch a decade ago, breaking his heart, his bank account and sending him to prison.

Larson, 50, has the rugged, weatherbeaten look of a cowboy both in dress and demeanor, but the genial sparkle in his deeply lined, searching eyes reveals a forgiving spirit.

“This is the perfect place for her,” Larson said as he looked affectionately upon his lost love during a recent visit to the Field Museum. “She belongs in a place like the Field.”

The business Larson and his brother, Neal, are in is prospecting for dinosaur fossils, then preparing and mounting the bones for display.

The object of his affection at the Field was Sue, the Tyrannosaurus rex fossil his business owned for two years after one of his prospectors, Susan Hendrickson, found it on what he thought was the private land of a South Dakota rancher in 1990.

Who owned the land became the question of a bitter federal court case, however, one that traces its origins to a long-standing battle between academic paleontologists and commercial bone hunters like the Larsons.

Peter Larson and his ex-wife, Kristin Donnan, talked about the triumph and travail that has engulfed the famous fossil when they were in town publicizing the book they have co-authored, “Rex Appeal” (Invisible Cities Press, $26.95).

The Larsons’ company, the Black Hills Institute, in Hill City, S.D., is renowned as one of the three most skilled fossil preparation laboratories in the world.

Before 1990, there were only 12 T. rex specimens known to science, none with more than 45 percent of its bones. Since 1990, 24 more have been found. Black Hills Institute prospectors found seven of them, including the two most complete skeletons ever.