The History of Knott's Berry Farm - "Calico"
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ส.ค. 2023
- There was no more farming at Knott's Berry Farm by the early 1950's. What started as a few displays to entertain the guests waiting for chicken dinners had grown into a business all its own, with concessionaires running the different shops, rides, and attractions around the park. Knott's Berry Farm even welcomed celebrity guests, like Mr. Walt Disney.
But Disney's visits weren't just for pleasure. He wanted his own park, and was studying what made other parks successful. When word got around that Disney's park was finally being built, everyone - including Walter Knott himself - worried it would put the Knott's Berry Farm out of business.
We owe an enormous thanks to the Orange County Archives, holders of the Knott's Berry Farm historical collection. Without their generosity and friendly assistance, we would not have access to many of the incredible historic images and videos in this series. In particular, Chris Jepsen was of vital importance. He selected many of the images in this series based on our storytelling needs, and his keen eye for quality, yet-to-be-published images made this series infinitely better. All the images he selected - more than we could fit in these episodes - are freely available to the public on the OCA Flickr account. He also runs a delightful and insightful local history blog, which we highly recommend. Tell him Theme Parchive sent ya! You can find it here: ochistorical.blogspot.com/
If you like this video, please subscribe to the channel, to make sure TH-cam serves you the next one and you don't miss the next part of this fascinating park's story. Also, let us know you enjoyed it in the comments. Those things really do help us grow, especially as a fairly new channel, and that makes it easier for us to make more videos like this one.
Want to help support the channel further? Visit us at: www.patreon.com/themeparchive
We also now have channel memberships! Join the channel to get access to perks:
/ @themeparchive
The official social media accounts we might actually use from time to time:
themeparchive
themeparchive
Thumbnail image courtesy Orange County Archives (original b&w) - บันเทิง
I love learning about how individual people help shape the history of a place. Paul Avon Klieben was obviously such a big part of the Knott’s story and I’m glad I get to know it.
It’s also awesome to see the call backs to the Disneyland story from earlier videos. Another great installment!
PvK was probably the biggest unsung hero of shaping the park. Lots of people familiar with the park know Bud Hurlbut’s name, and rightfully so. But most of the Ghost Town and Calico sections of the park are extremely close to the original PvK designs. Not to mention the Birdcage. I just wish they’d make his mine cart and covered wagon themed rooms as a restaurant. As it is, that space is empty, afaik, with no plans to put anything new in there. It’s just used as a catering area for large groups, last I saw. I’d love them to gut that building and try to bring those concepts to life.
I remember going to Knott’s Berry Farm as a kid, loved old western theme of the place, my favorites were the panning for gold (still have it 50 years later) and the guys in the jail, loved how they knew your name! This was in the mid 1960’s though, they had the John Wayne Theater then I saw my first “concert” there, Ricky Nelson. I was ten years old and he must have not had his crazy following at the time because I don’t remember girls doing any crying or screaming then. Good times!
Our next episode, coming out Friday, covers the building and opening of the John Wayne Theater. So cool that you saw your first concert there!
So fascinating story 😘… thank you 🙏💕🙏
5:16 My mother-in-law was educated in that very school house back in Kansas!
I didn't have the time to watch this one when it was up on the patreon so I'm finally getting to it now- great video as always! I was looking forward to seeing how Disney opening would affect Knott's both crowd wise and attraction wise. Every time I see another episode on Knott's it makes me want to go down and visit the park more since I've never been there
We had a trip planned for Disneyland and after seeing videos we added Knott's Berry Farm to our trip. Going in about two weeks.
@@CharleneCTX thats awesome! i hope you have a great time
I'm glad you finally got to see it. This one was super fun to make, since I got to sneak in some of the references to the Disneyland series. It's so interesting to see how worried people were that Disney would put Knott's out of business. Today, with how much the whole Anaheim area exploded because of Disneyland, it's hard to imagine feeling that way. And it makes sense Knott's survived: they had a legacy in the area. They had an edge over all the newer businesses that tried to cash in on the popularity of Disneyland. And you should definitely go, if you can! Before making this series, Knott's was a place I was somewhat interested in visiting; now it's a bucket list item.
@@CharleneCTX That sounds amazing. Come back an let us know how it goes! We'll definitely be interested to see what stuff from this series you got to see in park now.
I spent a few years in Garden Grove and can say that Buena Park faired better than Anaheim
will there be another installment of this series?
We're going to cover the rest of the history of the park in another 5-part series in the near future. Episodes are in production now.
Question 🙋♀️, when’s part 6 coming? October 1, or what?
As of right now, the video going up on the first Friday in October will be a compilation of our Disneyland series. The first Archives video went up on October 1 last year, so we decided to celebrate the anniversary by posting the entire series in one video.
It contains all seven chapters we released over the last year. It’s two hours long, telling the history of Disneyland up to opening day.
After that, there will be a new Sightlines Halloween episode in the middle of October, and the Knott’s series is scheduled to return for its second season on the first Friday of November. It depends on how video production goes, but that’s the current plan.
Question 🙋♀️ please 🙏, so Knott’s Berry Farm is really transforming into a theme park right?
Depends on your definition of theme park, but by the mid-50’s, the think it’s most people would think so. The really interesting question is when we get to the 90’s, and new management starts removing a lot of the theming, leaving it more of an amusement park. But that’s a story for a later episode.