Bedrock City

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

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