"Walter Knott never set out to build a theme park - but a series of smart choices and lucky breaks led him and wife Cordelia Knott to building one of California's earliest and most popular tourist attractions. When he did, he did it in the most unusual way possible: by cobbling together a historic re-creation of an Old West town using old, abandoned buildings. And depending on whom you ask, that old ghost town that's now the heart of Knott's Berry Farm is actually haunted."
"Just as Walt Disney was a cartoonist who evolved into a theme park innovator, Walter Knott had a similar story. He was a farmer who happened to marry a woman who made really great fried chicken and even better pies. Knott made another smart move when he rescued the boysenberry from being discarded by its inventor. Rudolph Boysen had been tinkering with a hybrid blackberry-raspberry-loganberry but eventually moved on from the project;"
Walter Knott and his wife Cordelia built Knott's Berry Farm from a farm stand and a roadside chicken-dinner business that grew rapidly after 1934. Cordelia's fried chicken and pies drew long lines and attracted visitors from across California. Walter revived the boysenberry by cultivating and selling the hybrid fruit, which became a signature attraction. The central park feature is a recreated Old West ghost town assembled from salvaged, abandoned buildings collected from around the West. The ghost-town environment became the iconic heart of Knott's Berry Farm and a major tourist draw. Many visitors report hauntings, though historians remain skeptical.
Read at SFGATE
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