Boot Hill, Knott's Berry Farm, July 1964
Let's go to Knott's Berry Farm! I will be the first to admit that today's photos are not super-exciting, but we have to take the good with the bad, according to some numbskull. We'll be visiting Boot Hill (named after Sir Albert Boot), Ghost Town's cemetery.
I'm sure I knew this at one time, but are the inscriptions on the headstones based on real epitaphs from other graveyards? The one near the little girl in pink reads:
SACRED
TO THE
MEMORY OF
BARTY CLAY
WHO USED AWFUL LANGUAGE
BUT PAYS HIS WAY
The one just to the left of that reads:
1861
HERE RESTS
MAJOR WES ASHBY
DISCOVERED THE APEX ZINC
MINE AND THEN DIED OF
LEAD POISONING
This one's a little blurry, so we ain't readin' nothin'! Besides, if I wanted to read, I would (say it with me) go to the liberry.
All of the best cemeteries have narrow-gauge passenger trains passing through, the bright yellow keeps the zombies from rising (according to Einstein). The woman with the babushka is clearly in mourning for Barty Clay.
I decided to throw this one in because A: I believe this "Night Watch" scene was near to Boot Hill, and B: It's kind of boring and I might as well use it up.
25 comments:
#1- The Indian family is up on the hillside. Now we know who Shiny Boy's parents are!
#2 & #3- Disney's HM epitaphs are usually fairly humorous. But Knott's are sometimes sad or just a bit creepy. Not sure what to make of that, but it's something I've noticed.
#4- Ah, Shiny Boy's parents again. And they're looking especially shiny here. They must have just gotten out of the mud baths at the hot spring nearby.
KBF pics are always welcome, Major. Thanks.
All of the Knott’s original Boot Hill epitaphs were real and not story written. The first grave markers were collected from
The California high desert and parts of Arizona and most were from the late 19th Century. The Knott’s people would make arrangements with local authorities to replace the old weathered grave markers with new ones recreating the same epitaphs. The old worn and natural sandblasted ones were brought to Knott’s. I think this was only for the very first “Boot Hill” and later markers were created by Knott’s craftsman. At one time actual 1800’s hearses were easy to obtain as so many survived since they saw very light use and were well taken care off. Today vintage horse drawn hearses are prized by collectors and command very high prices for fine examples. Knott’s Berry Farm once owned about a dozen …. Most rotted away from park display or were recently auctioned off. Today one hearse remains on display near Boot Hill … and some remains can be sighted from an earlier hearse that rotted away as shrubbery overtook it … this was the one that housed the speaker the eulogy recordings and dirge music came from.
Hearses and gravestones: "eek". Although I am fascinated by this "display", it IS very macabre in nature: to procure real headstones and move them to a theme park...hmmmm...I suppose it's nothing new, and "death fascination" has been around since humans have. I'll leave it at that: "creepy". Are these things still there? "Kiddies: we're going to Buena Park for some delicious fried chicken and GRAVESTONES"....I'm trying to make sense of it...but I dunno....The more I see photos of Knott's the more I want to do some urban archeology: "Bucket List 2024". Thanks Major.
I believe one of them has the epitaph, "Here Lies Lester Moore, Four Slugs from a 44, No Les, No More," which is from a marker in the actual Boot Hill in Tombstone, AZ.
And in the third photo, just to the left of the yellow passenger car, we get a glimpse of No. 340, Green River's orange-striped tender, surmounted by a cylindrical air reservoir for the brake system.
Perhaps these scenes could be improved by installing a 30-second roller coaster whose supports would tower over the headstones? No matter where you go, any "comedy cemetery" (two words that make perfect sense together) will almost surely have Lester Moore as one of its inhabitants. He might have more fake graves than anyone else. No Les, No More!
Thanks Major, all these pictures are beauties. I can smell the Eucalyptus and Pepper trees, also the creosote on the railroad ties. From the beginning Knott's had a frontier Halloween esthetic, with its own version of hard facts and macabre humor. In my childhood neighborhood many folks put on Halloween graveyard displays, which were mostly DIY in those days; one house copied this Boot Hill's inscriptions. There was even a marker for an infant:
Since I am
So quickly done for
I wonder what
I was begun for.
Then there was the double grave for a miner and his mule named Sappho. With Sappho here and Longfellow being read in the shack near the Gold Panning, you don't need to go the library for poetry.
I think these are Shiny Boy’s cousins, since his dad is Chief Wavy.
Mike, that’s a pretty wild back story on the grave markers. Hard to believe.
Viewing the markers in the Calico Cemetery is a sobering experience. In spite of the corny commercialized village (which started as a real place), the grave markers and graves are real, with real epitaphs. Probably the source of some of those original Knotts trophies. Those of the children are hardest to read.
Virginia City Cemetery is similar, with different areas set aside for different religious denominations and Lodges such as Masons and Oddfellows. Those organizations were important substitute families for the men who came West in search of their fortunes. In case of accident, disease or misadventure, your Lodge Brothers would bury your remains since your family was so far away. A different world.
These play cemeteries give us a chance to laugh, or at least chuckle at others mortal coil without feeling too morbid or worrying about being disrespectful, as a real one would do.
Thanks Major, these are good to see.
JG
Major-
Hmmmmm..... I guess my 'grave site' is only viewable at the other Orange County theme park-!
Thanks, Major.
This was always a must-do attraction at Knott's. Never thought it odd - it was just something that was expected of a town in the Old West.
You can see the backside of the Haunted Shack (named for Sir Albert Shack) in the background of the second picture.
Ahhh, yes, the blessed #340 Red Cliff, with a paint scheme that pairs so well with a recently-consumed meal (as opposed to the Locomotive Whose Name We Do Not Speak).
Major, yes, the "Night Watch" scene was near Boot Hill (see Photo #1). I love the little adobe-fronted dugout set into the "hill," which I assume gave access to the pumps on the little cascade.
Andrew, your idea about adding the supports for a 30-second roller coaster is pure genius. Genius, I say! But first they should build a big theater behind the "Night Watch" scene and change its name at least twice.
JB, I am glad to meet Shiny Boy’s parents! I like that Boot Hill’s epitaphs are a bit dark, sometimes Disney can go overboard with their puns. In my opinion. If you want shiny skin, try Vaseline! It won’t rinse off no matter what.
Mike Cozart, I kind of had the feeling that the epitaphs were real, they didn’t sound like they were made up by dudes trying to be funny. You’d think that Knott’s would just make their own new/old versions of the wooden grave markers, why go to the hassle of making examples for the original gravesites? It’s surprising that things like those old horse-drawn hearses were treated so poorly - why not bring them indoors at night, at least? But I guess there was a time, like many old things, when people did not value them. Bring me new stuff! I wonder about the one at Disneyland, in front of the Haunted Mansion; I assume that it has undergone a lot of restoration over the years.
Bu, I love that Walter Knott included things like Goldie’s (a house of ill-repute) and Boot Hill. I’m sure Walter saw plenty of death during his time working in the desert. Or *some* at least. And what’s more “western” than a rickety old graveyard, surrounded by a fence to keep varmints out? My favorite was the grave with the “beating heart”!
Steve DeGaetano, I have no doubt that there is a tombstone that has that epitaph, but I’m pretty sure that that one is very famous! Is it from the original Tombstone in Arizona?
Andrew, you have some great ideas, and I would like to pay you $500K a year! I would like to, but can’t. Poor Lester, was he a bad man? Or did he just have a name that made for a good rhyme?
Stefano, the scent of Eucalyptus really was something that I associated with Knott’s when I was a kid. I’m not sure I knew what a pepper tree was at the time, though they are everywhere now. Weeds! I am all for the black humor of a Halloween graveyard. See the opening credits for every episode of “Treehouse of Horror”! Oh man, that infant epitaph is very sad, but child mortality was a real thing back then. “Sally had 11 children, 7 of them lived to adulthood”. I have a friend who has a sample gravestone that just says “baby”.
JG, it’s been so long since I’ve been to Calico - I was perhaps seven the last time I went there. My aunt just sent me some photos of me, my siblings, and my cousins. I was so blond that my hair was almost white! I suppose a fraternal organization really could be a kind of surrogate family, I never thought about it. I mostly just imagine them performing ridiculous or sinister rites all the time, and wearing buffalo hats (you know, Fred Flintstone).
Nanook, you can’t be buried in two places! OR CAN YOU?
Chuck, a friend of mine always puts Knott’s Berry Farm down. It was Disneyland or nothing when he was a kid. I don’t get it! I loved both, and was always very happy to go to Knott’s, which was closer and cheaper, and a whole lot of fun. It changed a lot when the Roaring 20’s went in (we were not in California to witness the Gypsy Village), but I still loved it. I’m looking forward to scanning some old black and white negatives, including one with the train-that-shall-not-be-named, clearly before the unfortunate paint scheme was added! The big theater is a good idea, as long as we call it the Justin Timberlake Theatre.
Major and all,
The photos may not be "super exciting," but this is the Knott's that I loved as a kid and as a younger adult. And our kids got to see and experience it a little too, before it was made into something that I find not quite as lovable anymore. It seems a shame to me, but so it is. Thanks for jogging memories out of my aging gray matter Major. Black and white negatives you say. Bring 'em on. Love Knott's stuff.
W
If you ever visit LA’s FORREST LAWN ( “Disneyland for the Dead”) you’ll see themed mausoleums, and crypts … artwork and historic artifacts ( a section of the chain that blocked Boston harbor from British ships entering during the revolutionary war!!) and other intriguing and odd monuments and sites…. But you will also see the very sobering “BABYLAND” the section of children … mostly so young when they died never even had names except the family’s last name …. And born and died dates that are the same … or at least very close together. Despite most having note lived long , they were greatly loved judging from sone of the elaborate or substantial gravestones the babies received. Another sobering element when visiting places like this or other historic cemeteries is the thought that so many of the interred have been gone for so long that they couldn’t even have descendants who are living who would have known or remembered them…. And knowing that will happen to all of us one day. There’s a saying that humans have TWO deaths … the first being their physical death and the second is when your name is no longer spoken by the living again…..
Mike, thanks for the Knott's gravestone info. And I agree with---
Bu, about this practice of gravestone swapping. It would have been perfectly fine to take pictures of those old actual gravestones, and have Knott's craftsmen construct duplicates for the park. But to use the original gravestones???
Steve D, I like that epitaph... and only a little creepy.
Andrew, no doubt about it, roller coasters improve anything!
By the way, Andrew has a new post on his blog.
Stefano, concerning infant epitaphs- Like I said earlier, a bit sad, a bit creepy. Although the epitaph you quoted was on someone's lawn. I wonder if there are any infant/baby/child gravestones in any theme park?
JG, "I think these are Shiny Boy’s cousins, since his dad is Chief Wavy."
I stand corrected. But you have to admit that there is a family resemblance. And I agree with your thoughts on "play cemeteries" vs. real ones.
Nanook, one grave site is enough for anyone. (I see Major said just about the same thing... oh well.)
Chuck, I saw the Shack in the background too. But I wasn't sure if it was the Haunted Shack (Sir Albert or otherwise) because it doesn't look like it's tilted in this photo (?).
Major, oh I agree about some of Disney's punny epitaphs. They tried too hard on some of them.
Can we call the cemetery roller coaster "The Death Drop?"
Loving the additions to the lore of the Shiny Boy Family and the Society of Sir Alberts.
Given how visible mourning was as a part of Victorian culture, I like to think that the original users of the hearses and gravestones would have approved of their display, although maybe not in such an amusement-centered setting.
I'm still giggling a little bit that we have such a clear view of that nice lady's posterior right above major ASHby's monument. Yes, I am twelve years old.
People have been enjoying joke epitaphs for centuries. My a cappella group used to do a set of 17th-century drinking songs written by Henry Purcell in that style:
Here lies poor Toby all alone,
As dead as any stone. What, is he dead? It can't be so,
But he may be dead drunk from top to toe.
There let him lie, he'll soon be sober.
He's only full of good October.
Here lies the body of Anthony White,
Who was by trade an honest wheelwright.
Life wheeled him in; death wheeled him out.
Alas! How Man is wheeled about!
Beneath in the dust, the mouldy old crust
Of Nell Batchelor lately was shoven.
She was skilled in the arts of pies, custards, and tarts,
And knew every trick of the oven.
Having lived long enough, she made her last puff,
A puff by her husband much praised.
Now here she doth lie, to make a dirt pie,
In hopes that her crust will be raised.
Here lies Honest Ned
Because he is dead.
Had it been his father,
We had much rather.
Had it been his mother,
We had rather than the other.
Had it been his sister,
Then we never should have missed her.
But since 'tis Honest Ned,
There's no more to be said.
Like what Warren mentions, the cemetery was one of the must-see places I always looked forward visiting at Knott's as a kid with my family. Putting one foot on a grave and feeling the heartbeat of the deceased was absolutely spooky. I also remember being there in the evening, standing by the old hearse that Mike mentions, and listening to the eerie dirge and narration. The tape for it must have been stretched from long use since it had an unusually distorted quality to the recording. 1964 looks like a good time to visit: before the Good Time Theater blocked-in the site and the roller coaster sent loud trains rushing bay. It's too bad that Knott's was hemmed-in too much for all the ambitious plans they had.
Warren, nice to hear from you! Knott’s still has a lot to offer, but I admit that it isn’t quite as charming as it used to be. Modern crowds might not want “charming” however. Don’t worry, I will definitely scan those black and white negatives!
Mike Cozart, I’ve never visited Forest Lawn, even though I have driven right past the one in Griffith Park hundreds of times. I guess it just feels weird to visit a cemetery, though I know that it is a popular tourist destination. I really should just go someday. “Babyland”, yikes. Sounds very sad, I can’t imagine the trauma of losing a child, much less one at that early age. I’ve been watching a YouTube channel in which a guy bought some property with a small graveyard on it (from the 1700s), he’s restoring some of the old tombstones, but it seems that the folks buried there are largely forgotten.
JB, it does seem very strange that Knott’s didn’t just start with copies for themselves. As i said earlier, they made things a lot more difficult. The only thing I can think of is that Walter Knott was a little obsessed with acquiring actual artifacts from western towns, and maybe he would accept no substitute. Thinking about theme park cemeteries, I’m fascinated by the little one in Rainbow Ridge, and wonder if the headstones had epitaphs on them? Maybe not, since they were pretty much out of view from guests (as far as I know). We only know about the cemetery from early photos, before the trees blocked it. Re: Disney’s use of puns… once I saw “Chester Drawers” on Main Street, I knew they’d gone too far. I have a photo of that shop from Irene that I will share here one of these days.
Melissa, I remember seeing a book of photos that people had taken after a loved one had died. They propped them up, dressed them, etc. The idea is so ghoulish to me, but it was perfectly acceptable then. Very weird.
Melissa, I thought a cappella groups sang about the old mill stream and a cup of coffee, a sandwich, and you. Maybe that’s just barbershop groups! I’ve never heard of an a cappella group singing humorous epitaphs! Did you dress appropriately (veils, etc)?
Omnispace, the “heartbeat grave” was the best, we definitely had to visit that every trip. Along with the hearse with the body that sat up and then lay right back down (with that greenish light shining). I don’t actually remember being at Knott’s at night when I was a kid, funny how that never occurred to me until now. We did nights at Disneyland plenty of times, but now I wish we’d stayed until late at the Ghost Town!
"Did you dress appropriately (veils, etc)?"
We sure did!
Interesting pictures and topics, today, that's for sure. Using real tombstones and hearses at KBF seems creepy, but not as creepy as using real people skeletons in DL's POTC, when they first opened. :o\
Thanks, Major.
Major: I think you hit the nail in the head : Walter Knott’s was obsessed with acquiring AUTHENTIC HISTORIC western American artifacts for Knott’s Berry Farm. I have dozens of books on western ghost towns and mining camps of the west published from the 1940’s through today…. And I’m amazed at how many times I’ve read stories of small California gold rush towns … Montana Boom Towns and Nevada silver camps with preservationists and historical societies that mention battles to keep original town buildings and save them from “the man from the Berry farm” it’s interesting to see how despite how we revere places and people like Knott’s … he had a large amount of people who considered him a business villain….. there became a big enough movement in the 40’s and 50’s to protect historic structures from being sold off and moved away to tourist spots.
Sue: the real skeletons used in the early Pirates of the Caribbean were purchased by WED from medical supply houses …. Very common for schools and museums at the time … the skeletons were females from India and supplied to big educational and medial supply companies all over the world …. I think in the 1980’s synthetic skeletons began to become the norm. Real vintage medical school and biology class skeletons are very popular will “oddities collectors” and collectors of the macabre. So using real human skeletons by - mostly former animators who grew up studying anatomy and real human skeletons and using them as guides would not have phased early WED imagineers … just a tool of the trade being repurposed as a prop in the new themepark medium.
Mike, we had a real human skeleton in my Grade 6 science classroom. Our teacher said it was the skeleton of an Indian man who was fished out of the Ganges. We called him Fred; in retrospect we probably should have tried to think of something more Hindu.
"Ahhh, yes, the blessed #340 Red Cliff."
@Chuck, just to keep the record straight, No. 340 was "Green River."
No. 41 was "Red Cliff."
Steve, good grief - how did I manage to do that? I know better! All I can say is that the evil former paint scheme of #41 must have made me do it!
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