Monday, February 09, 2009

Knott's Berry Farm '68

Thank goodness the Calico Mine Train at Knott's Berry Farm is still with us! I have many great memories of riding that attraction when I was a kid, and these days it would be one of the few things that would make me still want to visit Knott's. This nice photo shows the façade of the huge show building, with its distinctive and endearingly-oddball rock work. Two locomotives can be seen, and the crowds are proof that not everyone who visited Orange County just went to Disneyland.


Dr. Mal de Mer is apparently out making a house call, so you are out of luck if you needed to buy some of his patent medicine (made from the finest swamp root and snake oil). But a candy apple will cure what ails you! And the popcorn and peanuts dropped on the ground fed a huge population of squirrels, chipmunks and birds for many years.


A pretty miss poses in front of a covered shed full of various wagons, carriages and coaches. My understanding is that Walter Knott liked to buy genuine antique artifacts of the American west, but I get the feeling that these old-timey convenances were reproductions. Beauties though!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It escapes me how anything with the business Knotts (never mind Disneyland) has enjoyed over the decades could ever get anything but better. I do wish them better...

Thank goodness the Calico Mine Ride remains so far is right. Any of us headed that way may want to make a point of paying for a visit to see it and letting management peeps there know that attraction is a reason we came. :)

Somehow that coach behind the young lady looks pretty authentic, or well seasoned at least. Such a neat place.

The Viewliner Limited said...

Very nice pictures Major. I actually drove to Knott's yesterday to stop in at one of the stores. There were no lines at the ticket booths at all.

But it had been raining like crazy. Still one of the coolest places I know.

I actually dated the cutie in the 3rd picture. OK not really, I just wish I had dated the cutie in the 3rd picture.

Nancy said...

nice pictures today, Major, esp the one of the Calico Mine Co. :)

Michelle said...

I spent more time at Knott's growing up than at Disneyland though I loved both. My family had annual passes and it was an awesome place to go to. I watched it grow and change over the years. It is totally ruined now. Last time I was there it was nothing but fast roller coasters. Some of the ghost town is left but you can tell the new management doesn't understand the park.