Should Pioneer Valley be Renamed Valley of the Dinosaurs?

Granted, this recession has been tough on everybody, but some obscure parts of the country have suffered more than others. Witness Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts, near the Berkshire Mountains, which named itself in the 1930's to promote a tourist-friendly image of hardscrabble settler life but now finds itself lacking a relevant "brand" to resuscitate its economy.

Now, according to The Boston Globe, a local booster named Sarah Doyle thinks she's found the solution. Doyle would like to change Pioneer Valley's name to Valley of the Dinosaurs, based on the thousands of fossilized footprints that can be found in the general area (part of the much larger Connecticut River Valley). This isn't exactly an original idea--witness Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill, CT--but Doyle hopes dinosaur-themed attractions will bring in the big bucks.

There's only one problem with this scheme--the dinosaurs that left their footprints in the Connecticut River Valley are mostly unidentified, and not nearly as sexy as T. Rex or Triceratops. As one local ad executive is quoted in the article, "I think it's a pretty good way of indicating to the consumer out there that we're finally dead, although the leadership in the area has often been referred to as dinosaurs."