Here’s a fun souvenir - an honorary Ghost Town Guide certificate from 1958. These were given out to school children (my mother saved hers) after taking educational walking tours - and this one is signed by Calamity Jane!

Wow - has it really been a month since the last update? Sorry - but I have a couple of good excuses... Firstly, we “soft opened” Universal Studios Singapore. And even though our attractions aren’t open yet, the public still sold out the gate paying $10 a pop to just tour the grounds! Hopefully, we will have things up and running at 100% soon.

Second - and all I can say is “finally” - ‘Knott’s Preserved’ went to the printer last weekend! I’m so pleased with how it all came out - I hope all of you are too. Everyone at Angel City Press put in overtime over the last two weeks - and I have to laud Amy Inouye. She’s our designer, and what she did in a very aggressive time frame is pretty amazing. You can check out her website here.

So, the book is now in the hands of the printer overseas, and we are still on track for a mid-April release. As I mentioned before, I will be coming back in April to do promotion and signings - with a special one on April 18th at Knott’s Berry Farm. More on that as we firm up the details.

I’ve updated the 1940-1949 section with a bit on the Covered Wagon Show. I sure miss this one - it had all the charm of early Knott’s that one could ever imagine. And it was the second true attraction at the Farm - after the Transfiguration - both great examples of Paul von Klieben’s genius. Click here to see what I mean.

Lastly, and I feel bad about this, I was so rushed on my last entry re: books on Knott’s, that I neglected to mention two other fine books that you can still get from their respective publishers. Jay Jennings was good enough to scan the covers and send me the following info:

"Knott's Berry Farm's Ghost Town: A Pictorial Retrospective 1940-1968". Dave Bourne (2007).

A heartwarming scrapbook full of great images about the people who worked at Knott's Ghost Town in it's heyday. Includes a special dedication to Knott's longest serving employee, Harvey Walker. Available from the author here. Scroll to the bottom.

 

"The Life and Times of Billy Beeman: Chronicles of An Old Fiddler". Billy Beeman (2006).

The book is divided into three chapter's: I. The Family Ranch Band. II. My Years With The Wagonmasters. III. The Song Writing Years. In these memoirs, Beeman remembers his younger years and subsequent decades in showbiz. His time at Knott's is also fondly remembered. Only 25 hardbound copies were made. Way out-of-print. There's plenty of biographical info on Beeman here.

Thanks Jay! There are some stunning images in Bourne’s book, and Billy Beeman has a ton of first-hand information about working at Knott’s in his earliest days. He was even there when there wasn’t a Ghost Town, and remembers Paul Swartz cutting silhouette caricatures for folks in the Chicken Dinner Restaurant in the late 1930s. How’s that for a living legend? You can also order CDs of vintage Wagonmaster recordings from his website.

OK - hopefully I’ll update again sooner, rather than later.

All best,

C.M.