This wallboard featuring the major players of the Goodtime Theatre’s 1915 attractions. You may already know Houdini, but the others are all quite real performers from vaudeville history. The name you should know though is Jim Lewis. He was a vaudeville star, famous for gurning and for playing characters older than his age. By the time he was an old man, he found his way to Walter Knott’s Ghost Town to become one of its original street characters, Sheriff “Dad” Lewis
Walter Knott and Cordelia Hornaday met in Pomona High School. They married in 1911 and he had a house built for them on 1040 West 4th Street at a cost of $1,665. They lived there about two years and had their first child, Virginia, while he worked for a local cement contractor. The couple ended up in Buena Park, where in 1920 they began farming and later opened the amusement park Knotts Berry Farm. A second Pomona structure is Westmont United Methodist Church 1781 West 9th Street. Funded by Walter Knott in honor of his father. Elgin C. Knott had founded the congregation in 1887 and his son, while attending church near Buena Park, remained a member of the church all of his life.
In a previous post, we visited the twin fiberglass Indian Chief's of Disneyland. Now we visit with the wooden Indian Chief of Ghost Town. The Cigar Store Indian was said to be the most popular trade sign, but other businesses used trade signs too. An Indian was chosen for a tobacco shop because it was Indians that introduced tobacco to early explorers of the Americas. These Cigar Store Indians, standing outside shops, served as an indicator to the Native Americans that the shop owner inside would trade with them. The store is part of the larger Western town recreation known as Ghost Town, and the building, erected in 1944 and still stands in Ghost Town today.
No trip to Knott's Berry Farm is complete without a visit to the Candy Parlour. When it opened in December 1959, the Candy Parlour had a fancy 1890s façade inspired by the designs of Otheto Wilson. The exterior was painted in bright colors and gingerbread trim, and its interior was red and gold with white marble counters. Claude Bell painted portraits of Walter and Cordelia Knott, which were featured front and center.
Visible through large windows from the sales floor, guests could watch expert candy makers in the process of whipping up chocolates, taffy, suckers, brittles, and turtles, as well as seasonal chocolate Easter eggs and Christmas candy canes. Taffy, the St. Bernard who stood guard out front, was a popular photo spot for guests. In 1940, Walter Knott’s construction crew began to build a “ghost town” out of buildings and materials salvaged from all over the western part of the country.
“We are continually seeking materials with which to reconstruct the ghost town here at Knott’s Berry Place. By securing a building here, part of another there, an old bar in one place or something else somewhere else we add to the picture we are attempting to portray—a composite picture of the ghost towns of the west as they appeared in ’49 and early ’50s. We are not collecting museum pieces nor is it the intention to build a museum. Our thought is to collect a town, but as that is impossible we try to do the next best thing—build or reconstruct a ghost town that will be authentic and show life as it was lived in the early days.” —Walter Knott, 1942 |
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