Photos From The Raptor Ranch Website:
I remember as a child seeing travel brochures about Bedrock City in local diners and motel lobbies on summer vacations when my family would travel through Arizona on our way from California to Texas and back. In my youth I was enamored with The Flintstones and I always wanted to visit the tourist attraction but I never got a chance to. My father was one of those point A to point B type of drivers who always made it one time without ever stopping along the way except for gas and a meal at a greasy spoon when the rest of us complained that we were about to pass out from hunger. A stop at a tourist trap based on a cartoon series that was several miles off the interstate was simply never going to happen no matter how much I could have begged. We were lucky to get lunch.
After several decades I finally got my chance as an adult to visit Bedrock City in the 1990s. By that time the park was far past its prime and was run down and mostly deserted. It was a great experience to finally visit a place that I had held such nostalgia for, but there was a part of me who still wished that I had been able to enjoy it when it was new and still in full operation. Seeing something like this as an adult and seeing it through the eyes of an fun loving child is something completely different.
The article states that the Bedrock City property was purchased in 2019 by Troy Morris and Ron Brown who intended to close down the Flintstones themed attraction and open Raptor Ranch, which is a bird sanctuary. The men originally wanted to preserve a handful of the original Bedrock City items in an attempt to preserve a small piece of the areas history, but it was their belief that modern tourists would be more interested in learning about birds than than seeing the home of a famous stone age family.
Thankfully Morris and Brown made the wise decision to keep Bedrock City alive believing that with a bit of a facelift the once popular park could exist alongside their Raptor Ranch. According to the Raptor Ranch website the group now plans to keep the attraction 'open indefinitely so everyone can now see this historic cartoon landmark from the 1970's.' Of course there is a $10 fee to visit Bedrock City, but at least the park hasn't been swept away by the dry desert wind. You can't blame Morris and Brown for wanting to make a buck off their investment after all and to be honest, this man that still has the soul of a ten year old will be happy to pay the fee to relive those childlike feelings again.
In 1971, shortly after the opening of Bedrock City, South Dakota, Woody Speckels decided to expand the family’s Flintstone enterprise. Inspired by the success of the park in South Dakota, Woody came across a lonely, arid stretch of land for sale in the southwest, which seemed like an ideal location for a second tourist attraction. And in June 1972, Speckels and his son, Francis, opened Bedrock City, Arizona.
Located in the small town of Valle, Arizona, Bedrock City sat halfway between the south rim of the Grand Canyon and the beloved Route 66 city of Williams. Like its sister location in South Dakota, the park immortalized the humorous, quirky characters and locations that defined The Flintstones. Although it was half the size of the park in South Dakota, Bedrock City, Arizona, effectively captured the quirkiness and vibrancy of the iconic Flintstones. Visitors had the chance to walk inside the character’s prehistoric homes, which were painted in bright rainbow colors and featured archaic furnishings and leopard skin tapestries. A towering green brontosaurus slide served as the park’s centerpiece, while other replicated establishments, such as a primeval barbershop and grocery store, contributed to the park’s Stone Age setting. As people walked amongst the park’s cement structures, audio from episodes of The Flintstones played on loop in the background. Like Bedrock City, South Dakota, the park immersed visitors in the ultimate Flintstones experience, not holding back on its kitschy aspects.
On this particular summer evening the town of Williams was the place to be. The main drag that was once part of the historic Route 66 was a sea of glowing neon, classic cars, bikers, tourist packed sidewalks, tourist packed bars and restaurants, historical buildings and Alien Jerky. To be honest with you, to this day I have no idea why the town was so overflowing with people and at the time neither one of us cared to ask. We were just having too much fun experiencing it all.
In it's heyday Route 66 was a literal haven of roadside attractions and souvenir emporiums. Some of these landmarks were rather interesting while the others truly deserved title 'tourist trap'. Indeed the 2,448 mile highway that spanned from Chicago to Los Angeles was thing of wonder for anyone who pulled over from time to time as well as anyone who simply spent the hours starring out the window.
During the 1970s Fort Courage enjoyed a lot of success as families traveled to California from the east. The replica of an 1860 army fort was home to a gas station, an Ortega's Tacos restaurant, a Pancake House restaurant, and several gift shops that sold cowboy and Native American trinkets. The fort itself served as a pseudo museum of what life may have been like back in a pop culture version of the wild west.
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