Bedrock City sold; owners intend to keep a bit of the Flintstones in the new attraction

COCONINO COUNTY, Ariz. - It's been a popular roadside attraction for decades, but after 50 years, Bedrock City, Arizona was about to close.

The new owners of the town based on the 1960's cartoon The Flinstones wanted to open a new park. They are, however, keeping Bedrock City open a little longer.

For Patti Chapman and her family in Payson, knowing this place would no longer be is exactly what brought them back to Williams more than a decade later.

"Alex was very upset when he heard about it, and I said let's go back for the final and we found out they're going to be keeping some of it," said Chapman.

"It feels like I'm two again," said Alex.

While change is coming to Bedrock, the owners say they will be incorporating some of the old buildings into Raptor Ranch.

"Fred and Barney's house, the brontosaurus, woolly mammoth, Pebbles and Bam Bam, snake exhibit, those things will be centered in the children's play area bring in some of the vehicles. So there is always a piece of Bedrock for all time," said Troy Morris, part-owner of Raptor Ranch. "All the flintstones vehicles will be grouped around this area right here, where we're going to keep the dinosaur slide and the snake. So we will group them around Fred and Barney's house. This will be the part that will be unchanged. So all the people that love flintstones it will still be here."

Raptor Ranch is set to open this fall. It's an adventure park with climbing walls, birds of prey demonstrations and some prehistoric adventures.

"It's going to be phased in as we go along, so we're going to bringing birds in. We just started training them. We're going to start building some of the structures in the fall, and it will be a three-year process and project to convert it over to what people want to see," said Morris. "Ultimately, we want to have all the birds of prey of North America with some exotics as well. There will be dozens of species here."

It's a vision and dream for Morris and his partner Ron Brown.

"Shortly after we decided to buy Bedrock City, I woke up in a cold sweat," said Morris. "I had a dream that I sold everything, quit my job, and bought a cartoon town in the middle of the desert and then it hit me. I actually did this."

Both are falconers who have come up with the adventure park in 2004, but the market crashed in 2008, putting those dreams on hold until now.

"Ron and I sat around for a long period of time, and we decided if we're going to make this happen we're going to have to make it happen ourselves," said Morris.

So now, it's a new era for Bedrock City, filled with education, flying birds and a little bit of Flintstones on the way to the Grand Canyon.

Raptor Ranch is having a contest, and they are asking everyone who has been to Bedrock City in the past to bring that photo, and take a new photo in the same place.