>> Where here at Knott's Berry Farm celebrating its entry into the Rose Parade
and its 100 year anniversary. This is America's very first theme park
and if you think you knew its history, think again.
What about Walter Knott, who was he?
>> Walter Knott was this hard-working farmer
who had a dream to basically just support his family.
He starts selling boysenberries on the side of the road and that becomes
boysenberry's by the basket, by the bushel
jams, jellies, preserves there was a point during the great depression
where a lot of farmers were defaulting on their property.
They asked Walter, "why are you staying" and Walter said, "because I've made a
commitment here". You're talking at a point where a basket
of berries is $0.15. Walter enlisted his family the
people he knew, and everybody had the same dream and
that was to make the Knott's Berry Farm, before it was a theme park the farm
itself into this amazing place.
>> So the boysenberry essentially established the Knott's farm. But it's the chicken
dinner in the history of it that kept people coming back.
>> The chicken dinner put us on the map. Started back in 1934
families stopped here to buy berries and make their way to the beach. And they
were hungry, and they wanted some food and at that point Knott's didn't sell any food.
So Walter convinced his wife Cordelia to make
her famous chicken dinner, which she did and she served to those people on her
wedding china. While it was so successful that people
came the next day, and the next day, and the next day and
suddenly there's a line around the block so they had to build a restaurant.
This was a beacon of down-home food and feeling good
and keeping this place alive and feeling like you were part of something.
Cordelia deserves a lot of credit. You can't really put one above the other
they were in it together, they survived together and they succeeded together.
>> So Jeff, here we are in Ghost Town how on earth did this get started?
>> Uh, this got started because the wait
of the chicken dinner restaurant was so long that people needed something to
engage themselves while they were waiting.
Walter loved the pioneer spirit the big inspiration for him was
that his grandma when she was very young got on a
covered wagon and made this treacherous journey not knowing what they were going
to find at the end. And he loved that emotion of starting
over in a new place and he wanted to share it with everybody.
>> Should I be worried about the rocking chairs moving on their own right now?
>> No, no. That's just the ghosts in Ghost Town, they're fine.
[up-beat country music]
>> Knott's Berry Farm the first theme park
in america, is that right?
>> That's correct. There were just amusement parks before then.
No park had an overreaching cohesive immersive theme until Knott's Berry Farm.
>> What else has been copied that was a first here?
>> We got the mine ride here and then across the way we have the log ride which
there had been flume rides before that time,
but Bud Hurlbut, but the guy who designed both of these amazing attractions
wanted to build it into a theme. Let's make it something. So instead of just
riding down a flume, you're riding a log you know in a flume that goes through a mountain.
(screaming of excitement)
(laughing)
>> Alright my hair is still good.
Snoopy...
>> The thing is with Knott's
everybody was part of it. The family lived here on the property. There are
still pieces of the farmhouse still here. Every kid and grandkid they
all worked here. They all work towards the same dream.
Him and Cordelia, lived on property until they died. They came to Knott's Berry Farm,
they came to Buena Park, and they stayed.
>> It's a great American success story.
>> It's the American dream, right?
When he made it happen right here in Buena Park.
(wing howling)