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vintage KNOTT'S BERRY FARM GHOST TOWN METAL ASHTRAY buena park ca SAD EYE JOE
This listing is for the metal ashtray shown. Measures approx. 5" x 5.5". Undated. A magnet does NOT stick to the metal.
Great souvenir/collector's item from Knott's Berry Farm's Ghost Town - Buena Park, California. Ashtray has an image of Sad Eye Joe; Ghost Town Street; and the Calico Railroad.
From Wikipedia:
Knott's Berry Farm is a 160-acre (65 ha) amusement park in Buena Park, California, owned by Cedar Fair. The 2015 Global Attractions Attendance Report states Knott's Berry Farm is the 12th most visited theme park in North America.[2]The park employs about 10,000 seasonal and full-time employees.[3] The park features 40 rides including roller coasters, family rides, children's rides, water rides, and historical rides. The park is accessible by public transportation.
The theme park sits on the site of a former berry farm established by Walter Knott, Cordelia Knott, and their family. Beginning around 1920, the Knott family sold berries, berry preserves, and pies from a roadside stand along State Route 39. In 1934, the Knotts began selling fried chicken dinners in a tea room on the property, and the Knotts built several shops and other attractions to entertain visitors. Cordelia Knott's efforts in the Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant were essential to putting Knott's Berry Farm on the map, and the ensuing crowds prompted the creation of even more tourist attractions. In 1940, Walter Knott began constructing a replica Ghost Town on the property. Knott added several other attractions over the years, and began charging admission to the attractions in 1968. In 1983, Knott's Berry Farm added Camp Snoopy, which began the park's present-day association with the Peanuts characters.
In the 1990s, following the deaths of Walter and Cordelia Knott, their children sold the family business; the theme park was sold to Cedar Fair, while the food business was sold to ConAgra Foods, which subsequently sold to J. M. Smucker; Smucker's reduced the range of products but has continued to make jams, jellies and preserves. Cedar Fair has continued to expand the theme park, adding Knott's Soak City in 1999 and adding other rides to the original park.
Craftsmen in Ghost Town demonstrate the arts of the blacksmith, woodcarver, glass-blower, sign cutter, and spinner. Demonstrations of narrow gauge railroading and farm equipment hobbyists accompany additional merchant stalls of cottage-craft fairs seasonally at discounted admission which is restricted to Ghost Town only.
Western Trails Museum, relocated between the candy store and the General Store to accommodate Bigfoot Rapids, still features historical western artifacts large and small, from a hand powered horse-drawn fire engine to miniature replica of a borax hauling "Twenty Mule Team" and utensils necessary to survive the prairie and wilderness.
The Ghost Town area has a few other notable attractions. The Bird Cage Theatre only hosts two seasonal entertainments – during "Knott's Merry Farm," two small productions of "The Gift of the Magi" and "A Christmas Carol," and a Halloween Haunt thrill show. The Calico Stage, a large open-air stage in Calico Square, hosts a variety of shows and acts, big and small, from those of elementary school students, Gallagher, a local band, and the summer-spectacular All Wheels Extreme stunt show featuring youthful performers demonstrating aerial tricks with acrobatics, trampolines, and riding ramps with skates, scooters, skateboards, and freestyle bikes to popular music. Calico Saloon recreates the revelry of music, singing and dancing, with Cameo Kate hosting a variety of acts. Jersey Lily, Judge Roy Bean's combination courthouse/saloon, offers certified comical "genuine illegal hitchin'" alongside pickles, candy, and sports/soft drinks.
Many parts of Ghost Town are forever lost to progress. The conversion of the Silver Dollar Saloon to a shooting gallery, Hunters Paradise shooting gallery to Panda Express and the original Berry Stand, moved several times with its last location now occupied by the Silver Bullet station.
What is left of Ghost Town today was based on Calico ghost town and other real ghost towns in the Western United States such as Prescott, Arizona. Walter Knott inherited his uncle's silver mill and land, then bought more of the actual Calico ghost town in 1951 and developed it. In 1966, he donated that property to the corporate-municipal County of San Bernardino which then made the town of Calico, California into a public historic park, for which it charged an entrance/parking fee. See 'History – Ghost Town – Calico' section above.
