Bedrock City Still Lives! - Travel To The Home of The Flintstones - Valle Arizona

Story By Ken Hulsey

Photos From The Raptor Ranch Website:

This morning, while browsing the internet, I came across an excellent article in Route Magazine (The Official Route 66 Magazine) about the history of Bedrock City in Arizona. Built in 1971 by Woody and Francis Speckels, the park was originally an amusement park inspired by the famous Hanna-Barbera cartoon, The Flintstones. Over the decades, Bedrock City became a popular stop for families traveling between the town of Williams and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

I remember as a child seeing travel brochures for Bedrock City in local diners and motel lobbies during summer vacations when my family traveled through Arizona on our way from California to Texas and back. I was enamored with The Flintstones and always wanted to visit the tourist attraction, but I never had the chance. My father was the type of driver who focused on getting from point A to point B without stopping, except for gas and a meal at a greasy spoon. No matter how much I begged, a stop at a tourist trap based on a cartoon series that was several miles off the interstate was simply never going to happen. We were lucky to get lunch.

Finally, in the 1990s, I had the opportunity to visit Bedrock City as an adult. By that time, the park had fallen far past its prime; it was run down and mostly deserted. While it was a great experience to finally visit a place I had longed for, there was a part of me that wished I could have enjoyed it when it was new and still operating at full capacity. Seeing such a place as an adult, rather than through the eyes of a fun-loving child, is a completely different experience.

The article explains that the Bedrock City property was purchased in 2019 by Troy Morris and Ron Brown, who initially intended to close the Flintstones-themed attraction and replace it with Raptor Ranch, a bird sanctuary. While the men wanted to preserve some original Bedrock City items to maintain a piece of the area's history, they believed that modern tourists would be more interested in learning about birds than visiting the home of a famous Stone Age family.

Fortunately, Morris and Brown made the wise decision to keep Bedrock City alive, believing that with some improvements, this once-popular park could coexist with their Raptor Ranch. According to the Raptor Ranch website, the group now plans to keep the attraction open indefinitely, allowing everyone to visit this historic cartoon landmark from the 1970s. There is a $10 fee to enter Bedrock City, but at least the park hasn’t been lost to the desert winds. You can understand Morris and Brown's desire to profit from their investment; after all, a person who still has the spirit of a ten-year-old will be happy to pay the fee to relive those childhood feelings.

See, sliding down the tail of a brontosaurus can be hip and cool.

Here is an excerpt from that Route Magazine article:

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 characters’ 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.

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