California’s original theme park is no Disneyland
My stomach flip-flops as I approach Knott’s Berry Farm. Screams spill from the wooden rollercoaster looped across the road, bounce off the footpath and strike fear into my heart. If you’re walking towards California’s oldest theme park from the neighbouring Knott’s hotel, you glide beneath the GhostRider’s wooden beams (if laid end to end they’d stretch 765 kilometres – the distance from Sydney to Bairnsdale or Ballina) before entering the gates.
Knott’s Berry Farm was California’s first theme park, with its ‘Ghost Town’ predating Disneyland by 15 years.
The idea of curved plunges, G-forces and occasional weightlessness sends me in search of comfort, so I make a beeline for Mrs Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant (also outside the park) that can seat up to 1000 patrons at a time. This homely eatery played a pivotal role in inspiring the theme park: so many people would line up for Cordelia Knott’s chicken dinners that her entrepreneurial berry-farmer husband, Walter, built a Western “ghost town” in the 1940s to entertain them.
Although my waitress recommends the chicken pot pie, I can’t resist ordering the crowd-pleasing fried chicken, served with mash and gravy, corn kernels or cabbage with ham, and a side of stewed rhubarb. Preceding it all is a plate of four buttermilk biscuits (scones) with butter and jam. Despite the calorific overload, I add a slice of boysenberry pie – after all, this is also the place where boysenberries (a cross between raspberries, blackberries and loganberries) were first successfully propagated.
The Knott’s original berry stand in the 1920s.
My visit coincides with the park’s annual Boysenberry Festival when all kinds of boysenberry-spiked foods and drinks are available over a five-week period (the park incorporates a patch of boysenberry bushes). While waiting for my appetite to return, I discover the park has options for visitors like me who aren’t into high-speed thrills.
In 1952, Walter bought the United States’ last operating narrow-gauge railroad – the Denver and Rio Grande – and moved it in its entirety to his California farm. Here, the steam-powered train was rechristened the Ghost Town and Calico Railroad. Today, it chugs around a circuit at the park’s rear with on-board roving entertainment. As a guy tricked up as a train bandit moves through our open-air carriage, he clocks the Canon camera dangling from my neck.
Wild rides: the HangTime rollercoaster.
“Now look out folks, we’ve got a cannon over here,” he drawls, pointing a black-gloved finger at me. “Is that loaded?”
His eye darts to my three-lens smartphone.
“And is that a three-barrel gun?”
I keep shooting him so it must be.
From the train, I spy the Butterfield Stagecoach being drawn by four clip-clopping horses – hello to my next mild ride. A dad-son duo is delighted I can join them to make up the front-row, up-top trio. We clamber into our prime spots and wait for the horses to drink their fill from a water trough wheeled in front of them before we head off.
One of the drivers is at pains to point out how few weekly hours these animals work (there have been protests over use of the horses, which are stabled across the road). Turns out she also recently bought a retired park horse for a pet.
Mild rides: A horse-drawn coach.
As I amble around the almost queue-less park (earlier drizzle has deterred visitors), the word that springs to mind is “wholesome”. Teens are lining up for wilder experiences such as the HangTime dive coaster. Adults and kids alike are floating up into the air on Los Voladores (The Flyer). At Camp Snoopy, tiny tots are smiling as they spin on jiggling Mud Buggies.
Disneyland famously touts itself as “the happiest place on Earth”. But as I sip a Boysenberry Hazy IPA at the end of the day and scan the passing faces, I can’t find a single frown at this end of town.
Details
Stay
The 618-room Westin Anaheim Resort, which opened in 2021, faces Disneyland Resort’s side boundary and offers a view of its Incredicoaster. Rooms with breakfast start from $US349 a night. marriott.com
Go
An Uber from the Westin to Knott’s Berry Farm, less than 10 kilometres away, costs about $US16. The Orange County theme park is a half-hour drive from Los Angeles International Airport.
Do
Daily admission tickets start from $US74.99; there are also themed festival bundles throughout the year and an annual park pass that’s less than the cost of two visits. knotts.com
The writer was a guest of Knott’s Berry Farm, Westin Anaheim Resort and Visit Anaheim.
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