Slide of the Week: May 18th, 2007
Knott’s Berry Farm, Buena Park, California, 1955
A man dons a rain slicker, smokes a cigarette and cradles a little girl sporting a hooded rain cape over a coat and dress combo who sips sweet, delicious boysenberry juice from a wax-paper cup through a straw. They are prepared for wet weather but the lady is not. She has no rain gear to speak of just red painted lips accentuating her cheeky smile, a simple-yet-stylish suit and a conservatively colored scarf gathered in her hands.
As millions have over the years these fine folks pose proudly with Handsome Brady and Whiskey Bill, totally fake Gold prospectors permanently on a bench positioned on a bench outside the Gold Trail Hotel in Knott’s Ghost Town. If this isn’t a classic Southern California Kodak moment I don’t know what is!
In the vast and spectacular scheme of Southern California history Knott’s Berry Farm has a huge place. It is the first permanent theme park where architecture, transportation, displays, demonstrations, food, music, performance, dramatic reenactments, souvenirs and costumed employees all came together to create total emersion, environment. And to think it was all inspired by the question of how to entertain all the people waiting in line to eat Mrs. Knott’s famous Fried Chicken Dinner on Sunday Afternoons. Surprisingly much of the ghost town still stands today, sixty-seven years after it began.
The Knott’s story is epic. The transformation a boysenberry field into the first theme park will be well told with slides and rare film clips this Monday night, May 21st at 7pm by the World’s Leading Knott’s Berry Farm Historian, Chris Merritt, at the La Crescenta Historical Society 4845 Dunsmore Ave. La Crescenta, CA. 91214
Admission is FREE.
This Saturday May 19, 2007, 11am til 4pm don’t miss the World’s Greatest Vintage Trailer Show Open House and Swap Meet at the Newport Dunes Waterfront RV Resort in the scenic back bay of Newport Harbor in Newport Beach CA. Admission is FREE.
Here’s to Knott’s, vintage trailers, everyone that help make my BIG SHOW a SELL OUT and YOU!!!
Charles Phoenix
Los Angeles
May 2007
9 Comments on “Knott's Berry Farm, Buena Park, California, 1955”
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May 18th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
I’m waiting with bated breath to hear what everyone thought of the “Big Shew.” One of these days I’m going to have to bite the bullet and drive the 400 miles to see one of them!
May 18th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Love your weekly slides and this one made me LMAO because I just had my picture taken with these guys in February. Thanks for sharing the nostalgia, and your show at the Ford ROCKED! Keep up the great work!
May 18th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Oh Charles, Really, Knott’s? Heavens. So many stories (I’m sure you know plenty) about how they aquired and built Ghost Town? Old desert towns have been pilaged of their antiquities thanks to Knott’s and their roving art directors.
I remember those two guys on the bench… like they were my cousins.
May 19th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Knott’s latest book written by David Bourne who played Honky Tonk Piano in Calico Saloon when Les Jones was off, later was part of the Wagon Masters with Billy Beeman’s group. Was seen in the series Deadwood recently playing honky tonk piano.
Check me out JoAn Burdick then , in my CanCan Costume — age 18- 19 before I went to perform with Frank Sinatra at the Las Vegas Sands Hotel in 1954. All six foot of me.
Dave and Patty Bourne 818-991-2479 if interested in acquiring a pictorial review of Knott’s from 1940 = 60’s. Jo ( Anaheim, CA 92805)
May 19th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Knott’s was always on our “free stuff” tours designed to dazzle visiting relatives in the fifties. (Yes, admission was free in those days.) Also on the tour: Forest Lawn (with statuary, last supper painting, etc.; Grauman’s Chinese theater footprint area; Farmer’s Market; Beverly Hills and Brentwood residential street drives; Victor Hugo Inn lookout gazebo (in Laguna Beach). Gas was cheap.
May 19th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Oh my God, now I wanna go down to my cellar and find almost the exact picture of me and my dad sitting with these guys at “Knotts”, same era, just about the same year. Brings back lots of memories.
Thanks again, Charles
May 20th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Sunday May 20th from Jo — at age 13, I was 5′10 and Mrs. Knott had hired me personally to be the “Junior Hostess” in the Chicken Dining Room for summer and weekends during school. She then asked, “Honey, what is yor age? ” When I told her 13 — she was very quiet and asked me to wait outside the kitchen where she sat high up in the center so she could watch from her vantage point. She called me back and said “We usually only hire girls 16 and older but we will give you a chance but do not tell anyone your age.” I kept my promiss and later moved from Bus girl, to waitress to Can Can Dancer. The Knott’s family were down to earth, hard workers and fair — they treated my older sister and myself and other employees with great respect and caring ways.
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:15 am
Interesting juxtaposition of people. Glad to hear Knott’s Berry Farm is still in business.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
I just love this picture, I was born in 1955. My mother took my sister and I to Knott’s Berry Farm in 1962. I still remember the trip. I had my first Boysenberry pie and could not stop eating it. My husband drives me to Knott’s berry farm every year for my bday on March 8th, we live 400 miles away. We have chicken dinner and Lots and lots of Boysenberry PIE. No one makes Boysenberry Pie like Cordelia Knotts. Thanks again Charles