Flintstone’s Bedrock City Up for Auction
If you are approaching or leaving the Grand Canyon South Rim, take some time to see Bedrock City before it’s gone. Bedrock City is the epitome of the old Route 66 type of Americana that might not be around much longer. This Valle, Arizona attraction will go up for sale on the online auction site www.auctionpoint.com on Nov. 12.
Bedrock City is based on the 1960s animated show, “The Flintstones.” This popular primetime television show inspired the Speckles family to build a Bedrock City outside the Grand Canyon National Park. Built over 40 years ago, this family owned and operated dream scape is one of the last gems that make you appreciate what is possible with enough hard work and imagination.
The caveman dwellings and businesses made out of angle iron, rebar, and blown in concrete, have the traits of a family-built attraction that you just don’t see any more.
When visiting, the first thing one has to take into consideration is that this place is in the middle of nowhere. Beside a giant Fred Flintstone sign, a few cartoon dinosaur bones and stone-age cars in the parking lot, you are given no indication of what this place truly is about. But just go past the little gift shop, and things change.
As you walk through the gift shop and perhaps enjoy a five cent cup of coffee – yes, it’s true -you will encounter items such as post cards, bumper stickers, mugs, key chains, etc., that have probably been waiting to be sold since the beginning of this amusement park. They definitely have the 70s vibe.
The friendly staff is dedicated and just happy and proud to be there. Pay the five dollars – you’ll still have plenty left for a Grand Canyon tour- and enter this place, which was clearly built with a considerable amount of hope, sweat, and blood. This wonderfully bizarre place will make you feel like you are on a different planet. Make sure to take lots of photos. Go inside the buildings since this roadside attraction comes fully furnished. Visit the movie theater that plays the famous cartoons, climb up a dinosaur with a giant slide or crawl through an extremely long concrete snake. And of course, wander through Fred and Barney’s houses. Yabba-dabba-do!
This simple attraction becomes absolutely magical if you let your inner big kid out. You can’t help but wonder how such a place even exists in the first place. This is a tourist attraction from another era, and you wonder how long this charmingly misfit will even remain to exist.
