The Cable Cars Going Home

Between 1955 and 1956 Knott's bought six cable cars from San Francisco. The cable cars were refurbished and converted from cable power to battery power. They made their Knott's debut on Easter Sunday 1955. The cable cars were donated back to San Francisco in October/November 1980. Here is the Berry Vine article about the last cable car being readied to go back to San Francisco.

There are two remnants of the Knott's cable car system still visible today at Knott's, they are the two old fashioned "traffic signals" on Grand Avenue. As the cable cars approached Grand Avenue they would trip a switch that would change the signal from GO to STOP and back again after it crossed the street. I will take pictures of these signals and post them here in the next couple of days.

The Ghost Town Firehouse

Again today, I'm posting some pictures in response to another blogger's post about Knott's. The subject was the Ghost Town Firehouse and the fire wagon located inside. I have another photo of the firehouse and wagon from about 1974.

Here's a photo how the firehouse looks today.

And now here are some pictures of the fire wagon as appears in its storage location today.

Knott's Frosty the Snowman

This subject came up in the comments of another blog about Knott's. So, I thought that I would post some pictures of "Frosty". The first one shows the refrigeration crew putting Frosty together, the picture is from the 1963 November/December Knotty Post. Frosty was made of this coiled tubing that would frost over to create a snowy effect. Note how deep Frosty's eyes and nose are in this first photo compared to the next couple of pictures.

This image is a page from the 1964 November/December Knotty Post.

This next photo is from the 1970 Winter Knotty Post.

The next photo is one of my favorite pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Knott, as they walk through Ghost Town holding hands on a winter day after a rain shower. You can see Frosty in his little lean-to on the right side there in front of the Ghost Town Firehouse.