teenager sculpting teddy bears in the sand on the beach at Atlantic City, New Jersey in front of a wooden building that was shaped like an elephant. Tips from passersby encouraged him, and before long he was making a living with his sand sculptures at state and county fairs across the country. In 1947, Walter Knott hired him to create the concrete sculptures of Handsome Brady and Whiskey Bill, who sit on the bench beside the Gold Trails Hotel in Ghost Town at Knott’s Berry Farm. These were well received by guests, and led to more concrete bench sculptures, including the Calico Belles, who were patterned after real people, Marilyn Schuler, who was a dancer in the Calico Saloon, and Cecelia Peterson, who was a singer there. Bell also operated the portrait studio at Knott’s from 1951 to 1986. He, his wife, and his daughter, Wendy, all worked there creating portraits of guests. His original portrait studio is now the Rock and Geode Shop. The interior fireplace, mantle, and relief of Mark Twain therein were all sculpted by Claude Bell. Knott’s still has artists (with Kaman's Art Shoppes operating the concession) who create pastel portraits of guests at a venue at the north end of Camp Snoopy. Knott commissioned Bell to execute the minuteman statue at the full-scale replica of Independence Hall at Knott’s Berry Farm. Bell painted portraits of Walter and Cordelia Knott which hang in the Chicken Dinner Restaurant. He also sculpted a bust of Walter Knott which is in Independence Hall, and a copy of which is on display at the ghost town of Calico, California. Perhaps inspired by Knott, Bell purchased 78 acres near Cabazon in 1946. There he built the Wheel Inn Café, which opened in 1958. Remembering the building that was shaped like an elephant in Atlantic City, Bell began building a life-sized, concrete dinosaur to attract customers to his café in 1964. Over the next 11 years, he built the 150-foot-long brontosaurus, and later, the 100-ton tyrannosaurus. Creationist museum Following the sale of the property by Bell's surviving family in the mid-1990s, Cabazon Family Partnership and MKA Cabazon Partnership of Costa Mesa, California, became the new owners of the roadside attraction. The partnership obtained approval for an expansion of the Cabazon dinosaur site in 1996 with the land-use approvals, including restaurants, a museum and gift shop, and a 60-room motel at the Main