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Creator of Desert Dinosaurs Dies at 91

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Associated Press

Claude K. Bell, whose dinosaur creations became a landmark to millions of Southern California desert travelers, has died at 91.

Bell died Monday of pneumonia at Humana Hospital in Anaheim. The retired sculptor for Knott’s Berry Farm spent more than two decades and $300,000 creating the giant creatures--a 150-ton, concrete brontosaurus named Dinney and a 100-ton tyrannosaurus named Rex--on an otherwise desolate stretch of Interstate 10 near Palm Springs.

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