King Kong is the Big Movie Gorilla who climbed New York City’s Empire State Building way back in his first film, which came out in 1933.
Six more movies have featured this member of the World’s Biggest Movie Monsters, but is he really a monster?
Most fans will tell you that King Kong was just misunderstood — he was taken from his home on Skull Island (wasn’t that a monkeynapping?) and he only wanted to protect actress Ann Darrow.
And he didn’t even know that it was against the law to climb up a skyscraper!
Photo by Rick Kilby
As you travel around the great state of Arkansas in your rental car or RV, you should definitely take a road trip to the tiny town of Beaver. In Beaver, Arkansas, you can find the Beaver Store Inn, and the waterfront Beaver RV and Camping Park.
Drive your affordable car rental or RV about 7 miles southwest out of town along Highway AR 187, and you can find the inactive Big Theme Park once known as Dinosaur World (and formerly known as John Agar’s Land of Kong) at 8608 Arkansas 187, Beaver, Arkansas 72631. This Big Tourist Attraction is the home of 100 dinosaur, caveman and prehistoric creature statues and exhibits, including the Gigantic Gorilla loved (and feared) by millions of moviegoers across the decades.
Unfortunately, Dinosaur World shut down several years ago, but the Big World Wide Web rumor mill indicates that if you talk to the right locals, you can still get a tour!
The park’s Big Cement Dinosaurs are sculptures created by artist Emmit A. Sullivan, while the Big Building-Climber himself, King Kong, was fabricated and installed by Bert Holster in the mid-1980’s.
Park owner Ken Childs had Holster include red blinking eyes and a moving jaw, although that feature broke soon after it began operation.
The theme park’s gift shop sold baseball caps printed with the slogan, “The Biggest Monkey on Earth!”
Photo by Chad E. Johnson
