Knott's Halloween Haunt History Tour

[fatdaddy]

Halloween 2014 is over, but Knott's Berry Farm had a special Haunt history tour on November 1st. The event was free, and was hosted by the author of the book "Knott's Halloween Haunt - A Picture History" Ted Dougherty. I was all prepared to buy the book, get it signed and...sold out! The book is totally sold out at Knott's and on Amazon, so if you find this interesting you're going to have to buy it directly from the ultimatehaunt.com website, which had limited supply of the final printing so hurry and order if you want the book before it sells out.

 

I arrived at the Haunt Museum in Ghost Town for the start of the tour. If you haven't visited the Haunt Museum there are a lot of interesting bits of Haunt history on display and from time to time they do indeed change those displays. So, it's always worth a visit. Okay, onto the tour.

 

Haunt ain't over just because Halloween is past, we got history to explore!

Costumes on display from past haunts.

Haunt has always had a host, "Seymour" was the original, a television horror movie host. Wolfman Jack, also hosted, as did Elvira, Freddy Kruger, and many others.

Elvira from past Haunts. Of course she has returned the past two years.

Elvira was at Haunt this year, still hot.

Knott's has used the Scary Farm name off and on, but it's always been Knott's Halloween Haunt.

One of the main attraction in the early days of Haunt were the "peek ins", they would redress the characters inside with masks and change them to "startling peek ins" along with live scare actors inside to pop out and scare people. This area, known as "fog alley" was one of the main attractions before the mazes and scare zones existed.

Monsters started roaming the streets of Ghost Town, because this door was locked. Bob Vernon arrived to his peek in, only to find it locked. After being unable to find the key, he took to the streets scaring park goers...aggressively. The managment liked the response and monsters have roamed the street for Haunt ever since.

Goldie's was a haven for Knott's sliders through the years. The original sliders had no equipment and slid just on thier boots, after some scrapes they started using the haunt webbing cloth for protection, but eventually the sliders themselves devloped thier own gear. Todd Stubbler is credited with slidings invention, which is know used at haunts world wide.

All sliding originated at Knott's, and much of the gear they wear was developed there too.

The Hanging was originally just that, the "The Deadman's Hanging" of a cowboy who had commited crimes. One of the cowboys eluded to a witch causing him to commit his crimes, and the next year they hanged a witch. Some "real" witches complained, so they changed it to a gipsy, they complained and they had to find someone else to hang. The modern Hanging can be somewhat attributed to Freddy Krueger, as he would do a show where he killed famous celebrities.

There were no mazes until 1977, although there were scare actors in the mine ride and the log flume, the original maze was set up at boot hill. There are only a few known pictures of it's layout, of course those are in the book.

We were treated to a bag of crap from our host, which was totally awesome. Wish I could have purchased the book.

I shall treasure it always!

Ted Dougherty, this dude knows his haunt history, some really cool facts and rare pictures in the book...if you can get it!

 

One more cool story was about a maze called Black Bart's Trail of Terror, which had live snakes, a real horse skeleton, and best of all a mummified corpse called Count Demonicus! Good stuff, great tour, buy the book if you want more facts and pictures.

Edited November 11, 2014 by fatdaddy

[larrygator]

Thanks, I love hearing about the history of parks and events

[cfc]

Very interesting, indeed. Knott's Halloween Haunt really marked the start of a trend for theme parks.

[Woodie Warrior]

I went out and got the book as a Christmas gift for myself. Should be an interesting read. I'm a huge haunt fan.

[fatdaddy]

Thanks for the the replys. It really was a fun little tour, Knott's has so much history in general, it would be cool to see more tours like this. I did order the book by the way, during the tour we got to see a lot of the pictures that were included, and just based on that and the brief history we got, I had to buy the book.

[Jew]

Ted is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. His passion for haunt is unrivaled.

[Philrad71]

Love these kinds of reports!

 

I knew Knott's haunts were fairly well known, but I never realized that they went back as far as they did.

 

Thank you for sharing!

[fatdaddy]

^Thanks, so many cool facts that show how it slowly morphed from some Halloween decoratons, into what it is today.

 

Yay, got my book...and it's signed! Great book, very in depth and amazing pictures of Haunt that most of us would never see if this book hadn't been made. Thanks to Ted Dougherty for putting this picture history together, and signing my book as well.

 

The book! My copy of "Knott's Halloween Haunt - A Picutre History" arrived, and it's my kind of book...it has pictures!

Autographed by Ted Dougherty, awesome! A little haunt card bonus, awesome! Book's awesome, I'm awesome...awesome!

 

The appendices in the back for everything from a complete list of haunt mazes, to monster speak (haunt vocabulary), are great. Too many cool things in the book to describe, get your own book!