The Sky Cabin At Knott's Reopens! - Part 5

Today we are STILL riding aboard the newly reopened Sky Cabin at Knott's Berry Farm! This vintage shot of the Sky Cabin is used here courtesy of the Orange County Archives.



We are now looking in a northeastern direction. The sun is behind us at this point and it's casting some pretty long shadows. In fact, if you look closely, you can see the shadow of the Sky Cabin and it's twenty-story tower being cast across La Palma Avenue (just to the left of the center of the pic).



Here are two more 1977 pics from Major Pepperidge's collection.





I've circled some more points of interest. The green circle is around the old California Alligator Farm site. Knott's bought this property after it closed down and it is now used for overflow parking.



In the vintage photos, the Alligator Farm property can be seen with a fence around it. Just to the right of that (not circled) is the old Cottage Pottery shop that used to be at the corner of Beach Blvd. and La Palma Ave. Does anyone remember that? Claim Jumper's restaurant sits on that corner today. I've circled the Galloping Goose railcar and one of the Gasoline Alley cars in blue, but we saw a close-up look at them in yesterday's post.



It will be difficult to see due to the shadows and trees, but the red circle is around the old brick arches that still stand along La Palma Ave. Did I hear someone say, "What brick arches?" Well, we will take a closer look at them in just a minute.

The yellow and the purple circles are around two former Home Savings and Loan locations. We'll be taking a more detailed look at them as well.



First, here are a couple souvenirs from the old Alligator Farm. This was a Southern California attraction that unfortunately I never made it to, but I do remember the large Alligator sign that used be out near the street. I would love to find an old picture of it!



According to Wikipedia, the Alligator Farm was originally located in a Lincoln Heights neighborhood in Los Angeles, next door to the Los Angeles Ostrich Farm. It opened in 1907 and was moved to Buena Park in 1953. It closed in 1984 due to a drop in attendance and the alligators were relocated to a private estate in Florida.



These are the brick arches mentioned earlier. They aren't that easy to find in the park. They are visible when riding the Stagecoach......




....or when riding the Dragon Swing!



This piece of architecture has a long history at Knott's as seen in this vintage photo used here courtesy of the Orange County Archives. Note the old sign for the Alligator Farm on the fence across the street. The trees behind the arches seemed to have survived at least until the 1977 photos were taken, but have since been cut down. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since most of the wonderful old trees that used to be at Knott's have been cut down in recent years.



Now we'll look at a couple structures across the street from Knott's. The building that was circled in purple in the aerial shots was the first of two Home Savings and Loans built at the intersection of Beach Blvd. and La Palma Ave. Home Savings and Loan was an institution that was known for incorporating artwork into the design of their buildings.



Let's take a closer look at the mural above the entrance.



The yellow circle in the aerial pics was highlighting the property just across the street. In the late seventies, Home Savings and Loan moved out of their original location on the southeastern corner of the intersection and into a larger building on the northeastern corner. In fact, if you look at the pics from 1977, the lot is being cleared and prepared for construction. Today, Chase has moved into the newer building after acquiring it from Washington Mutual. And look, there's IHOP sitting right next door just as it did in 1977.



We'll zoom in closer on the mosaic above the entrance. The subject of this mural happens to be Knott's Berry Farm! Who knew?



An even closer look reveals the detail. This particular mural is the work of artists Susan Hertel and Denis O' Connor.



We will end today with this small photo. It's a close up of the old Buena Park Mall sign and it can be seen off in the distance (circled in pink) in one of the vintage aerial pics. The mall was built in 1961 and for years the sign read "BPC" which stood for "Buena Park Center." I believe it was in the late seventies that it was changed to "BPM" for "Buena Park Mall" after a roof had been built over the outdoor shopping center. The sign has since been torn down and the name of the mall has changed once again to "Buena Park Downtown." Couldn't they have left this cool mid-century modern sign and just swapped the "M" for a "D"? I stopped by the mall a few months ago for the first time in over twenty years and found it to be in pretty sad shape. I took some photos of the interior and will possibly include them in a future post.

The Sky Cabin At Knott's Reopens! - Part 4

Let us continue with our ride aboard the newly reopened Sky Cabin at Knott's Berry Farm!



This is the view today, looking in a more or less northern direction.



Here are two more 1977 slides from Major Pepperidge showing approximately the same view.





I will attempt once again, to point out a few of the sites below. The green circle is around the barn where the park's horses are boarded. It is also used to store the stagecoaches. The tree-filled land in front of the barn is more overflow parking for Knott's.



The blue circle is around the Movieland Wax Museum sign on Beach Blvd. The museum itself closed in 2005, but the sign and the building are both still standing today. The building is the large reddish-colored structure in the photo above. It is painted white in the vintage photos.



Note in this second vintage pic that the Movieland Wax Museum sign is turned so that we can't read it. I don't remember it doing this, but it makes sense because many of the business signs from that time rotated up until the gas/energy crisis of the seventies.



Here is a close-up of the sign today. It really was impressive when all lit up at night. I remember the diamond shapes twinkling and changing colors like a vintage Las Vegas casino sign. There is currently a Starbuck's in the old museum gift shop that actually opened even before the museum closed. I think Starbucks or the City of Buena Park should pay to light up this sign at night as a historic landmark. It should even rotate again! I guess that would be a waste of energy though. They should at least keep it standing and never tear it down.....how about that?



The red circles in both the current and vintage photos show the Galloping Goose railcar parked on a spur track alongside La Palma Avenue. This unusual locomotive was built in the 1930's by the Rio Grande Southern Railroad and is still in operation at Knott's today. It tends to be used more on days when the park has lower attendance. These two close-up shots were taken just last September while the car was in use.



For a more detailed history of the Galloping Goose including the locations of it's five sister cars, click here: Galloping Goose.



And last but not least, we have a close-up of one of the vehicles that are circled in yellow in the vintage pics. These cars were a part of Gasoline Alley.....one of three car-driving rides that coexisted at Knott's once upon a time. (The other two were Henry's Auto Livery which was located in the parking lot at the corner of Beach Blvd. and Crescent Ave., and the Merry Go Round Auto Ride/Antique Auto Ride/Tijuana Taxi which was located in Fiesta Village). Sadly, none of these car attractions are in operation at Knott's today.

The Sky Cabin At Knott's Reopens! - Part 3

Today we will continue our trip aboard the Sky Cabin at Knott's Berry Farm. Incidentally, the tower that the observation car travels up is 20 stories in height. Supreme Scream which is the white structure on the left, was built in 1998 and measures a little over 30 stories tall. Windseeker which can be seen on the right, opened last year and is just about 30 stories in height. I was trying to get a photo of Windseeker and the Sky Cabin operating simultaneously, but I realized it was going to take some time in order to catch just that right moment, so I gave up!



Here is the view from inside the Sky Cabin looking out in a northwestern direction.



And here is Major Pepperidge's 1977 slide showing the same view. Of course the parachutes are now long gone, but I do remember what it was like seeing them sail past the windows of the Sky Cabin. I love that this photographer not only captured one of the parachutes on film, but also that one of the riders is waving at him or her.



Let's go back to the "today" shot and I'll point out a few things....just in case anyone is interested. The street intersection below is Western Avenue and La Palma Avenue. You can see that there used to be a gas station on both the northwestern and southwestern corners of the intersection, but they are gone today. A convenience store has replaced one of them and the other is now just a dirt lot. The grassy area to the left in both photos was and is overflow parking for Knott's. I think it is mostly used when the park's Halloween Haunts are taking place.



I've circled two areas on the photos. The blue circle is showing the U.S. Post office that is still in the same spot today (but now somewhat hidden by trees). And the red circle is around the five story office building that is located at the corner of Orangethorpe Ave. and Valley View St. (also visible when driving on the 91 Freeway).



Here is a close-up look at that building. I remember when I was a kid, the building had large "J.C. Penney" signs on all four sides of it. Today there is just one smaller sign on the top that reads "Progressive," however the massive warehouse building behind it is still a J.C. Penney Distribution Center.



And we have one last photo for today. This one was taken in 1985 looking in the same general direction, but just a little more to the left. The building in the lower left corner is a Fire Station and the buildings just above it (across the grass parking area) are part of Walter Knott Elementary School. Both are still standing today.

The Sky Cabin At Knott's Reopens! - Part 2

This is Part 2 of our ride on the Sky Cabin at Knott's. At the end of Part 1, we were still ascending the tower.



Here we are facing east and looking down on the Boardwalk gaming area. The building at the very bottom of the photo is the Boardwalk Barbeque (formerly Glider Diner when this area was known as the Roaring 20's Airfield).



We are now going to be able to view some "then and now" comparisons thanks to Major Pepperidge of Gorillas Don't Blog who is graciously allowing me to use his vintage pics from 1977. Here's the same view as above, but from 35 years ago. Note that the gaming area used to be called the Pilot's Rec(reation) Area and had a "wrecked" airplane on it's roof. Whatever happened to clever themeing like that? Has it all gone out the window?



Next we have a view from just a little higher up and looking just a little further south. We can see the twisted mess of roller coaster tracks that now dominate the skyline at Knott's. The red and yellow track belongs to the Silver Bullet and the brown wooden track on the far right is Ghost Rider.



This 1977 view shows a little bit more of the building below us which is the former Cloud Nine Ballroom. This was a very popular spot for dancing before the old animal farm was converted into "Studio K" in the '80's.



I'm going to repost the previous four photos again, but this time with a few of the landmarks highlighted. I've circled the large backstage access doors to the Log Ride in red. We have seen a closer view of these doors in the past (here)



You can see how the planter that used to be located to the right of these access doors was removed at some point and the gaming area was extended.



In these two shots, I've circled Independence Hall in blue. The purple circle is showing Silver Bullet's loading station (the former location of the Original Berry Stand which no longer exists). And the green circle is around the Church of Reflections which used to sit across the walkway from the Original Berry Stand, but was relocated to the parking lot when Silver Bullet was being built.





Just for fun, let's take a close-up look at the Church of Reflections in it's former location......



.....and in it's new location across Beach Blvd.



I have more "then and now" Sky Cabin photo comparisons (thank you Major Pepperidge!) so check back in a day or two to see the views to the north, south and west!

The Sky Cabin At Knott's Reopens! - Part 1

Yep, it's true. Knott's Berry Farm has reopened the Sky Cabin, an attraction that had been closed for years....an attraction that at one time, had been slated for demolition.

When Knott's opened the Airfield section of the Roaring 20's area in 1976, the Sky Cabin's tower was not only the tallest attraction at Knott's, but it was also the tallest structure in all of Orange County.



Of course the Sky Jump/Parachute part of the tower was removed some time ago. Fortunately, Cedar Fair changed it's original plans to tear down the rest of the tower and replace it with the new Windseeker attraction. Windseeker ended up being built elsewhere in the park and the tower was spared.



Work had been going on for some time on the Sky Cabin. I did a post back in September showing some test runs of the attraction with all of it's windows missing. Well as the months passed, I had started to wonder if it ever would reopen. In fact, after fellow blogger Outsidetheberm told me that he believed the attraction had a soft opening around Christmas, I called the park just to confirm that it would be open before making the trip over there. I spoke with someone in Guest Relations that assured me that not only was the attraction NOT open, but this particular employee told me that it would NEVER open again.....EVER. I asked if that was a fairly recent decision and she responded by saying that it hadn't been operating for years. I was determined to get more information from this person, so I politely mentioned that I had seen some testing being done on it in the Fall and that it looked like the windows were being replaced. She said she knew nothing about that and only that she had been told that it would not be reopening....EVER! Nice! So I ended up going to the park a few days later to see for myself whether or not it was operating.

When I got to the entrance of the Sky Cabin, I saw that the metal chain that had hung across it for years was gone. But where was everyone? Nobody was entering the queue and nobody was exiting it either...and there were no employees to be found in the area. You can see in the photo below that the new windows are tinted (actually it's a plexiglass panel placed over the glass on the interior that has the dark tint), so I couldn't see if anyone was inside the cabin. Just as I approached, it started to rise up the tower.



I went ahead and entered the queue, but as I walked up the stairs I realized there was nobody at the loading area.



It was kind of creepy.



This old rusty sign did say to wait for the operator, but the area just seemed so abandoned, I was kind of waiting for someone to come and tell me that I wasn't supposed to be in there and that they were still just testing it.



Finally, the Cabin started to come back down.......





When it reached the bottom, the doors opened and surprise.....it was full of guests!



At this point, a few people had started to line-up behind me. Now we just had to wait for the employee to do a walk-around of the cabin before letting us board.



And now we're ready to ride....well, once they close the doors!



The control panel looks kind of new. Whatever you do, don't pull that plug on the lower left! Actually, I don't remember what that went to. It might have been one of the air conditioning units.



Here we go! We are passing above Boomerang. Gee, why didn't they just leave the historic Corkscrew Roller Coaster where it was?



Now we're looking down on the entrance to Xcelerator and the neighboring souvenir shop and bathrooms. This is the former location of the old Cycle Chase/Wacky Soap Box Racers attraction.



This is Coasters Drive-In which replaced the old Airfield Eatery/Captain Kelly's restaurant.



And this is Wipeout which is similar to the Fiesta Wheel that used to be located in Fiesta Village.



Now we are a little bit higher above Xcelerator.



Sorry....I'm going to leave you "hanging" here for right now, but please check back in a couple days for more aerial views of Knott's (and Buena Park) in Part 2!