The History of Knott's Berry Farm - "Land"

The Knott family didn't arrive on the land that would become the Knott's Berry Farm theme park until 1920. But the story of their park, and how it came to be, is inextricably tied to the land on which it was built. In this first episode exploring the park's history, we follow the history of that land, from the arrival of the Spanish to the arrival of the Knotts. We also track the lives of the young Walter and Cordelia Knott, and how they came to start Knott's berry farm over 100 years ago.


We owe an enormous thanks to the Orange County Archives, holders of the Knott's Berry Farm historical collection. Without their generosity and friendly assistance, we would not have access to many of the incredible historic images and videos in this series. In particular, Chris Jepsen was of vital importance. He selected many of the images in this series based on our storytelling needs, and his keen eye for quality, yet-to-be-published images made this series infinitely better. All the images he selected - more than we could fit in these episodes - are freely available to the public on the OCA Flickr account. He also runs a delightful and insightful local history blog, which we highly recommend. You can find it here: https://ochistorical.blogspot.com/

If you like this video, please subscribe to the channel, to make sure YouTube serves you the next one and you don't miss the next part of this fascinating park's story. Also, let us know you enjoyed it in the comments. Those things really do help us grow, especially as a fairly new channel, and that makes it easier for us to make more videos like this one.

Want to help support the channel further? Visit us at: www.patreon.com/themeparchive

We also now have channel memberships! Join the channel to get access to perks:
   / @themeparchive  

The official social media accounts we might actually use from time to time:
www.twitter.com/themeparchive
www.instagram.com/themeparchive

Thumbnail image courtesy Orange County Archives (original b&w)