Cabazon Dinos and Palm Springs
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- Welcome home join us for a look at the Cabazon Dinos and some cool stuff in Palm Springs
#cabazon #peeweeherman #palmsprings #california
Cabazon Dinosaurs, formerly Claude Bell's Dinosaurs, is a roadside attraction in Cabazon, California, featuring two enormous, steel-and-concrete dinosaurs named Dinny the Dinosaur and Mr. Rex. Located just west of Palm Springs, the 150-foot-long (46 m) Brontosaurus and the 65-foot-tall (20 m) Tyrannosaurus rex are visible from the freeway to travelers passing by on Southern California's Interstate 10.[1] The roadside dinosaurs are best known for their appearance in the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985).[2]
Sculptor and theme park artist Claude Bell began construction of the dinosaurs in 1964 with the goal of attracting more customers to his nearby restaurant, the Wheel Inn (open from 1958 to 2013). Dinny and Mr. Rex were completed in 1975 and 1986, respectively.[3] Bell died in 1988 at age 91 and his family sold the property in the mid-1990s.[4] The new ownership turned the attraction into a roadside creationist museum in 2005, but creationist material has since been removed.
Claude K. Bell (1896-1988) began his artistic career as a teenager sculpting teddy bears in the sand on the beach at Atlantic City, New Jersey in front of a wooden building that was shaped like an elephant. Tips from passersby encouraged him, and before long he was making a living with his sand sculptures at state and county fairs across the country.[7]: 71 [8]
In 1947, Walter Knott hired him to create concrete sculptures of figures sitting on the benches at Knott's Berry Farm.[7]: 71-75 [8] Bell also operated the portrait studio at Knott's from 1951 to 1986.[8] He, his wife, and his daughter Wendy all worked there creating portraits of guests.[citation needed]
The Wheel Inn Restaurant
The site of the dinosaurs was purchased by Claude Bell in 1946 for $5,000 (equivalent to $75,034 in 2022). The land was leveled for him free of charge, as part of an agreement to let the state remove the gravel for development of an overpass on the freeway.[9] Bell began living part-time on the land in 1952, and opened the Wheel Inn there in 1958.
Bell began construction of his first dinosaur, Dinny the Brontosaurus, in 1964.[9] He took inspiration from a childhood visit to the Atlantic City Boardwalk, where he saw Lucy the Elephant: "From then on I decided someday I would build something big like that elephant house."[12] Steel and cement for the project were salvaged from the freeway, after a flash flood rendered them unusable for official state construction. Bell was allowed to remove the materials in exchange for clearing them from state property.[9]
The biomorphic building was first erected as steel framework over which an expanded metal grid was formed in the shape of a dinosaur.[13] Bell worked with engineer Ralph Titus to weld steel girders into the "ribs" of the dinosaur and then to wrap the structure with wire to form the shape of the skin. According to Bell, "Everything is shaped in wire - wrinkles in the neck, muscles in the legs." The wire was then sprayed with coats of shotcrete.[12]
Bell was quoted in 1970 as saying the 45-foot-high (14 m), 150-foot-long (46 m) Dinny was "the first dinosaur in history, so far as I know, to be used as a building."[12][14] His original vision for Dinny was for the dinosaur's eyes to glow and mouth to spit fire at night, predicting, "It'll scare the dickens out of a lot of people driving up over the pass."[12][14] These two features, however, were not added.
Dinny was completed in 1975.[15] At the time, the total cost of the project was estimated to be over $100,000 (equivalent to $543,847 in 2022).[15] In 1986 Bell gave an estimated cost of $250,000 (equivalent to $667,426 in 2022).[9] A 1999 article cited a cost of $300,000 (equivalent to $527,008 in 2022)
Awesome!! One of my favorite locations on Earth.
Meg enjoys going to palm springs as that is where her grandparents lived so she would be in the area a lot
This is on our list of places to go. Thank you for sharing your video with us.
You are very welcome. My wife's grandparents lived in Palm springs. We have a tribute video for her grandfather James West and a full tour of the Betty Ford Centre that he was instrumental in getting going as a founding physicians there