My husband Richard lived within walking distance of Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California from 1961-1963, back in the day when entrance was free and only a few attractions cost any money. For him it was the local park and playground, so it’s only natural that one of his favorite foods in the whole wide world is boysenberries! Did you know that all boysenberries in the world can trace their roots back to Knott’s Berry Farm? True story!
Years before Disneyland was built, 100 years ago to be precise, Walter and Cordelia Knott were tenant farmers on a berry farm near Buena Park, which they were able to finally buy in 1927. At first the family sold berries, preserves, and berry pies from a roadside stand. Then Cordelia opened a tea room they called Knott’s Berry Place, to help make ends meet. She sold sandwiches along with homemade jams and berry pies.
Inspired by a berry
In 1932, Knott’s green thumb changed their lives (and ours) forever. He met Rudolph Boysen, who had been experimenting with a new strain of berry–a cross between a raspberry, a loganberry and a blackberry. Knott was intrigued, but Boysen had moved on and left his plants behind. The men found the neglected plants tangled in a ditch, covered with weeds but no berries. The owners of the property allowed Walter to take some cuttings, and within a year the vines had produced massive berries. Fittingly, he named the new berry ”Boysenberry.” Between the boysenberries and Cordelia’s fried chicken, life for the Knott family would never be the same.
Which came first, the chicken or the boysenberry?
One June night in 1934, Cordelia served eight fried chicken dinners on her good wedding china in the Tea Room. Apparently you can’t keep a good chicken down. Word got around, and people started coming in droves to Knott’s Berry Place to enjoy Mrs. Knott’s delectable fried chicken. It became so popular that their daughter set up a card table gift stand outside to keep the people occupied while waiting in line.
Knott’s Berry Place soon had to expand from seating 20 to 40, to 70, and eventually to seating 350. Surely people wouldn’t have to wait anymore–but they did! There were lines down the street as people were waiting 3 and 4 hours to be seated. So Walter started building attractions, like a rock garden with a waterfall, an historical millstone and waterwheel (with a sign encouraging those who were waiting to sing “Down by the Old Mill Stream”), and an erupting volcano to keep people entertained while they were eagerly anticipating their fried chicken and boysenberry pie.
And so it begins…
What would become California’s first theme park grew as Walter added a ghost town and populated it with actors in old west garb. People started visiting the ghost town independently of the irresistible fried chicken restaurant as the park grew. Walter kept adding more and more buildings and attractions, mostly free, and in 1947 he named his park Knott’s Berry Farm and added a gold mine where you could pan for real gold.
If you want to read a more detailed account, Knott’s Berry Farm has a blog post here.
Family fun
When I visited the park in 1962, it was still free, and I have vivid memories of the many marvels we saw. Back then there were no roller coasters and really no rides other than the splendid and mysterious Calico Mine Ride, unless you counted the train, the stagecoach, and the mules.
One of the first things we saw as we came into Knott’s Berry Farm was the “Ghost Town and Calico Railway” narrow-guage 1880s train being held up by a train robber, who then was ”shot” in a gunfight and carted off by the undertaker in a wheelbarrow. Quite a show, and quite traumatic for a little girl! Afterwards we went into the Calico Saloon for a sarsaparilla, where we enjoyed soulful singers, clever repartee, and saucy can-can dancers whooping it up on a balcony at the end of the saloon.
We could hear Doc Skinem with his World’s Famous Indian Medicine Show before we saw him on his gypsy-type wagon, extolling the virtues of his cure-all ”blue nectar” elixir that would solve anything from an upset tummy to a broken leg, not to mention ensuring long life. To my utter astonishment, my dad gave me a dollar and told me to go buy a bottle. The thrill of attracting the notice of the flashy, bombastic Doc Skinem nearly overshadowed the exotic taste of the elixir, which I now know was a boysenberry concoction. All I remember was how delicious it was.
That’s me on the right!
We marveled at the house made out of bottles and were mesmerized by the blacksmith fashioning red-hot horseshoes by hammering them into shape on his anvil. We were enthralled with Mott’s Miniatures, a very unique collection of everything tiny, where I remember seeing (through a microscope) the Lord’s Prayer written on the head of a straight pin. Crazy! We sauntered down El Camino Real, which featured detailed models of all the California Missions built on the actual El Camino Real (which every California schoolchild knows means The King’s Highway). At the time I hadn’t seen any of the missions in person, so that was very educational and cool. The stagecoach rumbled overhead as the El Camino Real path dipped under the road. On a later trip with my sisters, we got to ride the Butterfield Stagecoach, sitting up top with the stagecoach driver. That’s us—the ultimate thrill seekers!
I remember the Covered Wagon Camp complete with a circle of life-sized covered wagons where ”The Wagonmasters” and other country-western acts performed for free. On our later sisters’ trip, we watched an impressive Wild West stunt show there. I peeked in buildings where you could see figures inside a general store, a dentist’s office, a Chinese laundry, and a jail cell where ”Sad-eye Joe” nearly scared us to death when he started talking to my dad and making fun of his bald head. What wizardry was this? A mannequin actually carrying on a conversation with us, without moving his lips or eyes, and no person in sight to feed him the information about us! I puzzled over that for a while.
The rollicking music of a calliope lured us into the melodrama at the Bird Cage Theatre, where Steve Martin got his start acting. We had a great time cheering for the hero and booing and hissing at the villain, in true melodrama tradition. Outside again, my brother sat between ”Marilyn” and ”Cecelia,” two seductive dancehall girls made of concrete, while we laughingly took his picture. Next it would be the girls’ turn to pose with grizzled concrete miners ”Handsome Brady” and ”Whiskey Bill.”
Up on Boot Hill we rolled our eyes at wooden tombstones with epitaphs like this one, a replica of an actual grave marker in Tombstone, Arizona:
HERE LIES LESTER MOORE FOUR SLUGS FROM A 44 NO LES NO MORE
The Haunted Shack was a dizzying place of otherworldly gravity-defying surrealness (is that a word?) Have you ever been in a ”mystery house”? When you walk in you feel like you’re leaning way over to the side, chairs perch on the wall with nothing to hold them there, and water runs uphill. It messes with your equilibrium and challenges your perceptions. When my sisters and I went back to Knott’s in 1973, I was chosen to sit in one of the chairs on the wall. My mind understands what is happening in these places, but I have to admit, it is unsettling!
Always one to want to educate as well as preserve history, Knott had an exact replica of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall built across from the main park, complete with Liberty Bell. It was quite moving to hear and experience the words of the founding fathers discussing independence, through an audio presentation. You can still visit this today free of charge, as it is outside the park. I highly recommend it. A walkway running under the street connects the area to the park.
We had our portrait done one year while the girls were riding the coasters
The most amazing thing of all, and a perennial favorite, was Our Little Chapel by the Lake. Built out of adobe bricks made on the farm, it was an inspiring place where you could just go inside and sit peacefully, relaxing with the soothing music. Then the double doors at the front would open to reveal the figure of Jesus, eyes closed. The narration of the Transfiguration would begin and the figure of Jesus would glow and open his eyes as the story unfolded. I always sat there, transfixed, until it was over and he shut his eyes again as the doors slowly came back together. This one simple yet powerful attraction elevated Knott’s beyond any other place I’ve been. Couple that with the Church of Reflections where they held regular worship services for decades and hosted many weddings, and you have quite a unique amusement park.
This is baby boomer nostalgia.
Turn of the Century
When we took our daughters to Knott’s in the early 2000s, Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the gang had come to stay at Camp Snoopy. There was tons of kid-oriented fun and even a shetland pony ride. Our girls loved it! I can’t remember if my dad coughed up the 25 cents to pan for gold when I was a child, but I do remember doing it with our girls (for considerably more than a quarter). They got about $4.00 worth of gold (according to the prospector there) which was sent home with us in a little vial filled with water preserving the tiny pile of gold dust.
Moving into the 21st century, the park has added all kinds of roller coasters and thrill rides like GhostRider and the Xcelerator, just to mention two, and even added a water park. This has made it more attractive to a lot of people, and it’s still a very popular place to spend many enjoyable hours. It’s not the park of our youth anymore, but the world has moved on in large part from nostalgia.
If you are still nostalgic, however, or just interested in seeing the Knott’s Berry Farm that we baby boomers and our parents remember, theme-park and historical vlogger JustinScarred has made an episode featuring a wealth of old home movies and memories that are fun and informative. You can watch the 45-minute tour from yesteryear here. And if you want to read a good book about Knott’s, check this one out:
The End of an Era
When Cedar Fair bought Knott’s Berry Farm from the family in 1997, they began de-emphasizing the quaint ghost town and focusing on thrill rides. This took away the heart, at least for many of us who found a large part of Knott’s almost unrecognizable as the Park of our youth. Thankfully, in recent years they have worked to bring back the life—and heart—of Ghost Town. As an annual summer attraction, Ghost Town Alive has brought reenactors back as old-west citizens who interact with and charm the guests as they draw them into the story. I think it’s time for us to revisit the park and make new memories—when the world safely opens up again.
It’s the berries
My memories are from just a few trips over the years, but Richard has lots more memories, living so near to Knott’s Berry Farm in his formative years. In true faithful fan style, boysenberry—anything boysenberry—is one of his comfort foods. You know, the special dishes we turn to when we want to feel better, or more…inspired. Getting our tummies filled with food that we not only love, but that feeds our souls as well, can really be uplifting. When Richard is having a hard day, I like to fix him comfort food. Or when I want to do something special for him…just because.
Whatever the inspiration (full disclosure—I also love it 😋), I made him (us) a boysenberry pie yesterday. Although you can buy boysenberry preserves and boysenberry syrup, it’s always a little hard to find just the berries—they either want to mix them with raspberries and strawberries and sell them frozen, or they’re just not in the local stores. So Richard, in true pandemic fashion, turned to Amazon and FOUND BOYSENBERRIES! There’s no other berry with such a rich, robust flavor that is just the right blend of sweet and tart, in my opinion.
The recipe
Have I made your mouth water yet? If so, I have something for you: ”Lazy Man’s” Boysenberry Pie. My big sis taught me how to make this pie with peaches, and you’ll never find an easier pie recipe. It makes its own crust, and I adapted it to boysenberries. Here’s how I make it:
Ingredients:
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2/3 cup milk
- 1/2 cup butter*
- 2 cans of boysenberries
9” x 13” baking dish
Preheat the oven to 350°
Melt 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter (I melt it in the baking dish while the oven is heating)
Mix dry ingredients with milk to make the batter while the butter is melting. I use a whisk.
Pour batter over melted butter, but DO NOT STIR.
Spoon berries evenly over batter with slotted spoon—DO NOT STIR.
Bake for about 40 minutes, depending on your oven. Crust will rise to the top and should be golden brown. It will have a biscuit-like texture and is absolutely delicious! Top with a scoop of ice cream if you like to live life to the fullest!
*you can use 1/4 cup butter if you prefer.
Pro-tip: drain the juice and save it in the fridge to use in boysenberry milkshakes! Yum!
Boysenberry shake in a glass from Knott’s
Happy 100th birthday, Knott’s!
I’d love for you to share any stories or memories you have of either Knott’s or your favorite comfort food in the comments. Sign up below to keep up with my blog and get occasional goodies!
