The new owners of the long-closed Meteor City Trading Post west of Winslow, Arizona, have posted photos of their progress in renovating the property — plus an announcement of a target date of Memorial Day weekend for reopening.’
It would be the first time Meteor City was open to the public since 2012.
The Facebook page for the Route 66 landmark posted a slideshow of the work being done:
More photos from the site:
Meteor City’s website also contains a substantial list of forthcoming attractions:
- A Dino Drive-Thru where visitors can view 30 dinosaurs from their vehicles
- Gemstone mining and fossil digging
- Shoot Out the Star target practice with BB machine guns
- Paint-A-Bug featuring three vintage Volkswagens, including an iconic VW minibus
- Catch-A-Ducky and win a prize
- Ride-A-Dino featuring an animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex
- Hurricane Simulator that re-creates what it’s like in a 72 mph winds
- Oddities that include a mummified 10-foot-tall woman and a Neanderthal man
- Miniature Palisades Amusement Park
- Western town, including a jail
- Vintage penny arcade games
- And, finally, a gift shop within Meteor City’s geodesic dome
Dole Family Properties, which owns Crystal Cave in Springfield, Missouri; Mr. Putter’s Putt Putt in Atascadero, California, and other outdoor attractions, bought Meteor City for $50,000 last summer.
Michael and Joann Brown of Indiana bought the closed and vandalized property in 2017 for $20,000 with plans to eventually reopen it. But Michael died in 2022.
A scene was shot at the trading post for the 1984 Jeff Bridges sci-fi film “Starman.”
Meteor City’s geodesic dome has been there since 1979, but its days as a roadside business go back further.
A gas station operated on that site on U.S. 66 starting in 1938. The business itself then went through several expansions or reconstructions.
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