Cabazon Dinosaurs

50770 Seminole Drive
Cabazon, CA 92230
(951) 922-8700
www.cabazondinosaurs.com/

The Cabazon dinosaurs were built by Knott's Berry Farm sculptor Claude K. Bell (1897-1988) in the 1960s to attract customers to his Wheel Inn Cafe which opened in 1958. Dinny, completed in 1964, was created out of spare material from the construction of Interstate 10 at a cost of $300,000 over the course of two decades until Bell's death in 1988.
No construction company or contractors were involved in the project. In 1981, Mr. Rex was constructed nearby to Dinny. A giant slide was intended to be installed in Mr. Rex's tail, but this plan was scrapped. Dinny's paint job was reputedly done by a friend of Bell's in exchange for one dollar and a case of Dr Pepper. A third woolly mammoth sculpture and a prehistoric garden were drafted, but not completed, due to Bell's death. More than mere sculptures, Dinny and Mr. Rex are habitable buildings. The entrance is at the base of Dinny's tail. Bell himself once lived in Dinny's upper rooms.

Both Dinny and Mr. Rex have a brief cameo in the video of the Tears for Fears song, Everybody Wants to Rule the World as well as in the motion pictures Pee-wee's Big Adventure and The Wizard.
 dinosaurinteresting placebig thing (attraction)
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabazon_Dinosaurs
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:  33°55'14"N 116°46'23"W

Comments

  • I love this place. The only good thing about going to Palm Springs is the stop here at the dinosaurs!
  • Bought in 1996 and turned into a Creationist Museum.
  • Correction: Since 2005, new owner Gary Kanter, an Orange County developer, has been using the dinosaurs of Cabazon as a platform for a Creationist viewpoint. Working with Pastor Robert Darwin Chiles, they have transformed the Cabazon Dinosaurs "from tourist stop to place of worship," according to a story by Ashley Powers in the Los Angeles Times.
This article was last modified 8 years ago