History of Knott's Berry Farm

Walt built a 12-foot-tall volcano[17] of lava rock trucked in from the Pisgah Crater in the Mojave Desert and equipped it with a boiler that rumbled, hissed, and spit steam at the push of a button.

Starting at the corner of Gold Mine Road and Main Street, "Deadwood Dick's" grave marker showed that he died with his boots on, near Soldado José wood carving of a Mexican Soldier.

In 1940, Gus Thornrose set up shop behind the 'G'old trails hotel, with standees, a Western saloon bar-room scene, and even a stuffed bucking bronco posed in mid throw.

Folks could select from a wide variety of costuming and stand for a pose, or choose to put their faces through holes of humorous standees such as lifting weights, prospector dancing with a Can-can girl or sit behind painted oxen hauling a covered wagon to be captured with vintage wooden large format bellows cameras onto glass photographic plates.

Along the north side of Main Street were benches on the boardwalk featuring photo opportunities with concrete figures of the grizzled prospectors Handsome Brady with Whiskey Jim (although the sign behind the bench called him Whisky Bill, a misprint)[35] and the dancing girls Marilyn and Cecelia Hargrave, a very popular hand pump among the kids which recirculated water through a horse drinking trough, and Old Betsy the popular photo-opportunity of a small saddle-tank steam locomotive and borax train beside the Blacksmith's shop.

The Music Hall[38] (1945) housed a masterfully executed painting of a Native American family lit by firelight entitled "The Night Watch," by noted artist Charles Christian Nahl, that Walter Knott's art director, Paul von Klieben had urged him to purchase.

Live performances of popular Country and Western bands and singers were featured, as guests gathered around a raging campfire, surrounded by a circle of Conestoga wagons,[43] humorously painted with slogans such as "California, or bust" on the Prairie Schooner canvas.

Marion Speer, who had a degree from the Colorado School of Mines, worked for the Texas Company (Texaco oil) and had spent a lifetime collecting geological specimens, Native American artifacts and relics of the Old West.

[54][55][56][57][58] The museum was initially housed in a building (which was razed in 1987 to clear a pathway to the new Big Foot Rapids ride) at Knott’s Berry Farm between Jeffries Barn (now known as Wilderness Dance Hall) and the schoolhouse.

The Knott's Berry Farm's Wild West Stunt show performances are scheduled at the Covered Wagon Camp nowadays, with impromptu shootouts in front of the Blacksmith, outhouse and Calico Saloon.

In 1951, work began to grade and lay track for a grand circle rail route for recently acquired authentic 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge C-19 engines No.

An underground lake, steam geyser, shaft elevator, Philip Deidesheimer's Square-set timbering construction techniques on the lift hill and several glimpses of the "Glory Hole" could be seen aboard this power assisted gravity coaster.

Dead Man's Trestle was then crossed slowly before the train became a "runaway" through a blasting zone and cave-in for a thrilling climax of this enclosed, power assisted gravity roller-coaster.

A faithful re-creation of "The Jersey Lilly" Judge Roy Bean's Saloon in Langtry, Texas opened in 1947 with casks on each end of the bar disguising Boysenberry Drink fountains.

Corn kernels could be purchased by the handful from gum-ball machines mounted on poles near the water's edge, and a popular activity for local residents was feeding the ducks who lived there year-round.

A tour guide would then collect the tickets as guests were seated on benches facing a fence built in forced perspective behind a level concrete slab in the shape of a cuneiform cross.

From an outhouse at the exit, words were heard complaining about the sudden queue for the potty from inside, stating they may have to wait awhile – then the door would fling open revealing the surprise of a seated human skeleton with newspaper as if reading.

In 1956, a miniature El Camino Real was completed, running North from the end of Stage Road at the railroad depot, underneath a pedestrian underpass of the Stagecoach trail then alongside it, up to the far edge of the park at La Palma Avenue.

Along the way were twenty-one adobe enclosures each displaying a miniature model accurately portraying life and activities of the next Spanish mission in California to the north, with descriptive text beside the viewing window.

Knott's Bird Cage Theatre featured Live Old Time Melodramas with fanciful subtitles such as Riverboat Revenge and Wreck of the Bluebell Express or Don't Switch the Engine, it has a Tender Behind wherein the audience was encouraged to participate by cheering the hero, "Aw" for the heroine and to boo and hiss at the villain.,[79] which was the starting place for many small-time actors, as well as that of Steve Martin.

Children fortunate enough to have grown up in the area may still recall taking a battery-electric powered San Francisco Cable Car[81] to the South end of the parking lot to drive a Model-T[82] at Henry's Auto Livery on the Northwest corner of Beach Boulevard and Crescent Avenue.

Between the blown-up Miner's Bank and the Grist Mill with its water-wheel grindstone bagging corn meal or wheat flour was a collection of mining equipment, shafts, and shacks playing fanciful recordings of their activity.

A few steps beyond, in Boot Hill Cemetery, headstones and grave markers gave macabre humor to the fate of the deceased – Hiram McTavish even invited bystanders to good luck by feeling the heartbeat by standing on his mound.

North, across the Cable Car tracks, was Old MacDonald's Farm – a petting zoo with: goats, bunnies, and chickens, even a pair of hundred year old Galapagos tortoise, and for a short while, a baby elephant.

Pushing a nickel in the coin slide would illuminate a red lamp atop her toy piano and signal her to peck out a song; when she'd hit enough keys, a sprinkling of corn would be released into her food tray.

Pairs or trios of children would sit on wooden seats suspended from the end of eight poles radiating from a central axis where a mule patiently waited under the canvas shade.

Walter turned his attention toward political causes,[93][94] Roaring Twenties[2] re-themed Gypsy Camp in the 1970s with the addition of a nostalgic traditional amusement area, Wheeler Dealer Bumper Cars, Knott's Bear-y Tales.

Mystery Lodge recreates a quiet summer night in the village of Alert Bay, British Columbia then guests "move inside" the longhouse and listen to the storyteller weave a tale of the importance of family from the smoke of the bonfire.

Local horror movie host, "Seymour, Master of the Macabre," was booked to do a show in the John Wayne "Haunted" Theater, some spooky decorations were added to the park, and Bud Hurlbut dressed up in a gorilla suit to scare riders on the Mine Ride.

Knott's Scary Farm now stretches for all of October and part of September, with a large contingent of enthusiastic fans, as well as locals from all walks of life vying to get a job as a "monster.