Dinosaur Caves Park
Near Pismo Beach, California
On the bluffs of Shell Beach, at the north end of Pismo Beach, a giant concrete dinosaur once loomed over the coast highway. In the middle of the twentieth century a man named H. Douglas Brown is said to have built a metal framed, plaster coated brontosaurus big enough to be seen from the two lane Pacific Coast Highway, a roadside lure meant to pull curious drivers into his souvenir and bait shop and its adjoining attraction, the Caves of Mystery.
Brown set the cave entrance in the dinosaur's tail, and for a small fee visitors could walk down into a genuine sea cave, its sandstone walls lit by natural skylights. Not everyone loved a prehistoric monster in the view. Neighbors complained, the county found that Brown had built without a permit, and the beast met a slow extinction.
In time the concrete dinosaur was lost, and the sea cave itself collapsed. The bluff top land changed hands for years until the city of Pismo Beach acquired it, and through long volunteer effort it opened as Dinosaur Caves Park in the early two thousands, a green clifftop with ocean views and only memories of its concrete namesake.
