Greetings family, friends, and neighbors! Today's rambling is about a classic roadside attraction, Bedrock City, that has survived more than fifty years and stlll manages to attract visitors traveling to the Grand Canyon....Bill
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Roadside Distractions
BEDROCK CITY
Fred Flintstone has been luring visitor’s to Bedrock City, the themed
roadside attraction, RV park, and Diner on the sparse desert plateau
midway between Williams, Arizona and the South Rim of the Grand
Canyon for more than fifty years. The imposing twenty foot tall figure
watches over the aging collection of familiar Flintstone characters,
Fred, Barney,Wilma, Betty, Pebbles, BamBam and Dino, that have
managed to survive the extreme weather, cancellation of the original
animated show decades ago, and attempts re-theme the once
popular tourist stop. With the success of his South Dakota Flintstones
franchised park RV park, Jerome “Hudi” Spreckels opened his
Arizona park in 1972 using the familiar Flintstone characters, cartoon
buildings, imaginary Paleolithic creatures, and stone wheeled
vehicles inspired by the prime time Hanna Barbera Productions
animated sitcom.
For a small fee collected at the gift shop visitor’s can visit the home of
Fred and Wilma, their neighbors the Rubbles and a dozen whimsical
cement buildings that make up Bedrock City. Kids are encouraged to
run free in the stone age setting, slide down the back of a full size
dinosaur and crawl through the length of a colorful snake tunnel.
In 2015 Bedrock City’s owner, Linda Spreckles, announced her
planned retirement and intention to sell the fading roadside attraction.
Troy Morris and Ron Brown purchased the property in 2019 with the
intention bulldozing Bed Rock City and creating “Raptor Ranch” an
interactive ecotourism destination, however Fred and the the vintage
roadside attraction surprisingly continued attracting tourists en-route
to the Grand Canyon. With the change in ownership, the word
“Flintstones” could no longer be used by Troy and Ron so Bedrock
City has evolved into a hybrid attraction featuring birds of prey
exhibits within the stone age village where it is said that a familiar, but
unnamed cartoon character, can sometimes still be heard
shouting…Yabba-Daba-Do Bill - 1/24
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