After graduating from Queen Anne High School in 1937, he attended the University of Washington, but dropped out after his first year and hitchhiked to Los Angeles, hoping to work for Walt Disney.

Also while in the Navy, he began a camp newspaper strip, Half Hitch, which ran in The Saturday Evening Post beginning in 1943.

[5] After World War II, Ketcham settled in Carmel, California, and began work as a freelance cartoonist.

[1] "The Charming Spanish residence and guest cottage overlooked sweeping lawns and gardens leading down to the swimming pool and cabana, and in the distance were the typical California soft golden hills dotted with live oak trees."

[7] The Spanish adobe home on the Carmel Valley property was designed by architect Hugh W. Comstock with bitudobe brick.

On the edge of the orchard was a Victorian ranch house for the foreman and his family, designed by architect Wilson Mizner.

[9] In 1970, King Features Syndicate revived Ketcham's wartime strip Half Hitch as a newspaper comic.

[9] In 1977, Ketcham moved back to the United States and settled in Monterey, California, with his third wife, the former Rolande Praepost, whom he had married in 1969, and with whom he had two children, Scott and Dania.

At the time of Ketcham's death, Dennis the Menace was distributed to more than 1,000 newspapers in 48 countries and 19 languages, by King Features Syndicate.

The playground opened on November 17, 1956, with children's play areas including a 1924 locomotive steam engine, donated by the Southern Pacific Railroad.

A life-sized, 3.5-foot-tall (1.1 m), 200-pound (91 kg) bronze statue of cartoon strip character Dennis the Menace was displayed at the entrance to the playground.