ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the curious and incongruous history and in conclusion offers brief comparisons with other American amusement parks that emerged about the same time. Yet, since the 1970s, one of the consistently top ten parks in the United States has been Knott's Berry Farm, the curious emanation from a Depression-era fruit stand and chicken restaurant located on a country road in rural Orange County, twenty-five miles east of Los Angeles, which somehow morphed into a major amusement park. Left without property, Knott rented land as a teenager for commercial gardening, though at the age of twenty he also worked as a bookkeeper. Knott was fortunate enough to encounter Rudy Boysen who had created a hybrid berry plant in 1927 that produced an especially large and later ripening fruit, soon known as the Boysenberry. Knott even put his original Berry Stand and second-hand Model-T Ford that he drove in the 1920s onto the site.
