The creation of the Cabazon dinosaurs began in the 1960s by Knott’s Berry Farm sculptor and portrait artist Claude K. Bell (1897–1988) to attract customers to his Wheel Inn Restaurant, which opened in 1958 and closed in 2013.

“The dinosaurs aren’t dead and they never will be,” Bell’s daughter, Wendy Murphy of Costa Mesa, said. “He wanted to build a monument that would withstand the sands of time, and he has done that…”