Belated thanks

[Curley Cole]

http://www.amazon.com/Knotts-Berry-Farm-America-Publishing/dp/0738569216

GCR

I have 2 real good books on Knotts. The one above is good, stories and pix from early daze...and also Dave Bourne (piano player from Deadwood) has a book of pix from the days he played at Knotts. (ya know Steve Martin used to play at the BirdCage..)

I have both of them and they are really good. (altho, sadly the gun shop is very minimized in them...)

get em, and that price at Amazin is a good price too.
curley

[Forty Rod]

Forty Rod, thanks for bringing a tear to an old fools eyes first thing in the A.M.

My folks bought the first house in a housing tract called La Mirada. As a young un, I also found my way to Knotts Berry Farm where I hung out most weekends.  The gun shop was my favorite spot.  Out the back door Harry had an archery range, and I was usually there shooting bows and arrows.

Fast forward a few years.

I went to a place called Hobby City to pick up some stuff at the Indian Store.  They had built a new white colonial style building in the back, so strolled on back.  I walked in the door and began to drool all over myself.  Ray and Jackie Taylor both walked up and introduced themselves too me and welcomed me to their grand opening.  A couple weeks later I returned and bought a Berdan (Wesson) .45 caliber rifle and all the supplies.  At that time I joined the Golden Bears.  I was a regular there for the next 5 years.

Shortly after I met a fellow by the name of Jim (no balls) Burton and we become close friends for 20 years.  Six months after starting shooting soot burners, Jim and I decided to go to a Rendezvous in northern California at a place called Butte Meadows.  When we went to the store to get supplies, Jackie asked me if I had a tomahawk?  No!  Well you can’t go to Rendezvous without a tomahawk!  Jackie gifted me that hawk and I have and throw it too this day.

Wish I still had that Rifle!

I miss those days but am also thankful for these days.  I miss Ray and Jackie as well, they were great people with a pure love of the soot.

T Dub, that Wesson .45 was a keeper.  I let mine go, too, but wish I still had it.  The only problem was the "receiver" wasn't very good metal and the barrel would shoot loose over time.  Spectacular looking son, though.

We probably met.  I started going in there in early '75 and Ray hired me to work PT while I was still in the Corps and when I got out in March '78 he put me on full time.

[Curley Cole]

 

Here is what Calico looked like in 1927, (about what it looked like in 1956 when I first saw it)  

I put this pix up to show that the common misconception that Knott took buildings FROM Calico to KBF was just that. Most of the buildings at Knotts were brought in from all over the states. The school house is from some place in Kansas (I could tell you exactly but Old Top has my book at the moment.

I loved the way Calico was when I first went there...no gas, no electricity...just rough as it should be.

thought some of you would find this interesting.

curley

[GunClick Rick]

I'm gonna get those books..Thanks for the link Man look at those adobe walls? How the heck did they keep them up?

[TwoWalks Baldridge]

T Dub, that Wesson .45 was a keeper.  I let mine go, too, but wish I still had it.  The only problem was the "receiver" wasn't very good metal and the barrel would shoot loose over time.  Spectacular looking son, though.

We probably met.  I started going in there in early '75 and Ray hired me to work PT while I was still in the Corps and when I got out in March '78 he put me on full time.

I have no doubt we crossed paths there.  From the week they opened and about 10 years forward, Jim and I were regulars in there.  Did you work with a crazy fellow named Tom by chance?

[Curley Cole]

I made a name for my self onct in that archery range. A Saturday nite, I was with a cute date. There was rubber balls hanging by string from the ceiling. I called the shot and stuck a arry in one of the center balls. Before I could draw another arrow there were dozens of arrows flying trying to hit the balls to impress the other girls....Do you think I tried to do it again....NOPE...I walked away having done it once. For the longest time my arrow was the only one hanging there stuck in one of them balls...

Once in a while ya look good for the girls...most of the time....not...

curley

[GunClick Rick]

That's what i call "Stickin it to "em"

[Forty Rod]

I have no doubt we crossed paths there.  From the week they opened and about 10 years forward, Jim and I were regulars in there.  Did you work with a crazy fellow named Tom by chance?

I was one Tom (Taylor) and the other was Tom Winters, a gin-you-wine mountain man sort.  He had a beard and long hair and I was the pretty one. 

[TwoWalks Baldridge]

I was one Tom (Taylor) and the other was Tom Winters, a gin-you-wine mountain man sort.  He had a beard and long hair and I was the pretty one. 

That be the one "Tom Winters".  Now that helps me put things right.  We did meet for sure.  Tom, Jim and myself use to trek together in the day.  Thanks to this electronic contrivance, it has become a small world.

[Forty Rod]

That be the one "Tom Winters".  Now that helps me put things right.  We did meet for sure.  Tom, Jim and myself use to trek together in the day.  Thanks to this electronic contrivance, it has become a small world.

Last I heard of Tom Winters he was in Big Timber, Montana working for a gun cart company.  That was maybe 6-7 years ago.

[GunClick Rick]

I was one Tom (Taylor) and the other was Tom Winters, a gin-you-wine mountain man sort.  He had a beard and long hair and I was the pretty one.  

The one with the face only a mother could love  

[El Peludo]

It is funny just how small the world can be sometimes.  My memories of Knott's Berry Farm are not as clear as some of yours, but I went there with my family at least once or twice a year; it was always a fun trip.  We lived in the San Gabriel Valley from '47 to '55, and then moved to Azusa for a few years before leaving civilization and moving to Twentynine Palms, so it was not as easy for me to get to the fun spots like that.  After I got growed up and was chasing a career, we moved to South OC in '68, and every time we got company from aout of town, we had to squire them about and KBF and D'Land were always on the agenda, along with the other attractions that were in that general area.  We actually got tired of going there.

I discovered Hobby City in the early mid seventies, and went there as often as I could manage.  In the early eighties, I started working in Orange and Stanton, and visited more often; frequently after a graveyard shift, I'd get a bite of breakfast and drop in just after opening time at The Flintlock.  I would wander through, have a cuppa if there was any available, and sometimes listen in on the Saturday gabfests.  I seldom had much to say, but I did enjoy just hanging out with folks of like mind.  The rondeevoo affairs they had out in the "park" were always fun.  Forty Rod and I have already established that we surely met back then, but just never knew we'd be corresponding like this years later; so I'm sure I rubbed elbows with some more of you folks, too.

[Forty Rod]

It is funny just how small the world can be sometimes.  My memories of Knott's Berry Farm are not as clear as some of yours, but I went there with my family at least once or twice a year; it was always a fun trip.  We lived in the San Gabriel Valley from '47 to '55, and then moved to Azusa for a few years before leaving civilization and moving to Twentynine Palms, so it was not as easy for me to get to the fun spots like that.  After I got growed up and was chasing a career, we moved to South OC in '68, and every time we got company from aout of town, we had to squire them about and KBF and D'Land were always on the agenda, along with the other attractions that were in that general area.  We actually got tired of going there.

I discovered Hobby City in the early mid seventies, and went there as often as I could manage.  In the early eighties, I started working in Orange and Stanton, and visited more often; frequently after a graveyard shift, I'd get a bite of breakfast and drop in just after opening time at The Flintlock.  I would wander through, have a cuppa if there was any available, and sometimes listen in on the Saturday gabfests.  I seldom had much to say, but I did enjoy just hanging out with folks of like mind.  The rondeevoo affairs they had out in the "park" were always fun.  Forty Rod and I have already established that we surely met back then, but just never knew we'd be corresponding like this years later; so I'm sure I rubbed elbows with some more of you folks, too.

What do you mean "if there was any available"?  First guy in every morning turned on the lights, made coffee and then whatever else was needed, like sweeping up, setting up the register, hauling out trash and any dead critters, etc.  After that...all day long...whoever emptied the pot, or found it empty, made a fresh batch.  If you didn't get a cup, it was your fault.  Noy Nixon's (he came in one time) or Dubya's, but YOURS!!!  We got some truly awful coffee that way and some that was very good, but there was always something called coffee in that pot. 

Sometimes I really miss that place.  It didn't pay much (and I NEVER ONCE got home with  complete paycheck, but there was always something there I just had to have and I bought  lot of cool stuff at employee prices) but the work was agreeable and the people I met there were priceless.

[Curley Cole]

What do you mean "if there was any available"?  First guy in every morning turned on the lights, made coffee and then whatever else was needed, like sweeping up, setting up the register, hauling out trash and any dead critters, etc.  After that...all day long...whoever emptied the pot, or found it empty, made a fresh batch.  If you didn't get a cup, it was your fault.  Noy Nixon's (he came in one time) or Dubya's, but YOURS!!!  We got some truly awful coffee that way and some that was very good, but there was always something called coffee in that pot. 

Sometimes I really miss that place.  It didn't pay much (and I NEVER ONCE got home with  complete paycheck, but there was always something there I just had to have and I bought  lot of cool stuff at employee prices) but the work was agreeable and the people I met there were priceless.

That is the truth. I could never work at a paistry shop (altho did a donut shoppe for a bit) a record store, a book store or a gun store because I knew that I would be leavin most if not all my pay there.

The Flintlock wasn't real close to my home grounds, but I still made it there often enough  and there are more than a couple of things that I still have that came from there. Funny how folks paths cross thru time ain't it.

curley

[Curley Cole]

Hey 4T

I got my books back from Top tonite, and in one of them is a picture of the gunshoppe and standing out front is Harry and his wife.

It was taken around the time he opened the shop in 1951.

curley

[TwoWalks Baldridge]

Harry working on a gun stock.