Representative image of T-Rex of the Cabazon Dinosaurs. (Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons)
In 1964, Claude Bell , former Knott’s Berry Farm sculptor, began constructing a giant dinosaur beside Interstate 10 in Cabazon, California. He hoped to attract motorists to his Wheel Inn restaurant, and the result was a 150-foot-long, 45-foot-high structure called Dinny. It took Bell 11 years and $250,000 to complete the construction, made from salvaged steel and concrete from nearby construction, according to the Los Angeles Times. A doorway in the tail of Dinny leads to an 18-by-56-foot main room, while the dinosaur housed another apartment in its back. Another giant dinosaur was in the cards for Bell, a Tyrannosaurus rex called Mr Rex, whose construction began in 1981 and was supposed to be 65 feet in height. After Bell passed away in 1988, the property underwent a new phase after a development company took over the site and expanded its attractions, ABC 10 reported. As of today, the Cabazon Dinosaurs stand at 50770 Seminole Drive in Cabazon, California, where visitors can explore dinosaur displays and other attractions. Dinny and Mr Although Bell never finished his planned prehistoric garden and the Wheel Inn was demolished in 2016.
Because he wanted visitors to be curious when they entered and explored the structure, initially, Bell’s idea was to use the main room as a restaurant or cocktail lounge, but he quit on it. What was initially an advertising idea became a landmark motorists travelling through Southern California recognised. Eventually, the interior ended up accommodating a museum. The original plans included a winding staircase towards its mouth, which visitors were supposed to climb and, through its teeth, look across the desert. Bell’s other ambition extended beyond the two dinosaurs, and it included adding a woolly mammoth and smaller prehistoric animals to create a dinosaur garden, but those additions never materialised. The additions saw the development of robotic dinosaurs, a dinosaur bone pit, and a gift shop inside Dinny. The property was also given a new look as a visitor destination rather than serving its original role as a roadside attraction to entice customers to the Wheel Inn. Hollywood also helped put the dinosaurs on the map with elevated status after they appeared in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and The Wizard . Moreover, the way the Dinosaurs’ interior was used also went through major changes; SPACES Archives records show that Dinny’s interior became a museum dedicated to Young Earth Creationism. Rex remain roadside landmarks, outlasting the restaurant they were built to promote.
