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On Saturday,
Phil,
Katie and I headed east,
out of
Orange County (*gasp!*) to do a sort of "
Walking in Walter Knott's Footsteps" tour. Our first stop was
Norco, where we found the site where the Knotts started a second berry stand and nursery. It never took off like the original
Knott's Berry Farm in
Buena Park. The photo above shows the Norco stand and nursery in about 1930, at the corner of Hamner Ave. and 3rd Street. (They also grew berries not far away.) The photo below shows what the same spot looked like as of Saturday.
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Our next stop was in
Newberry Springs, on the
Mojave Desert, where Walter and Cordelia Knott homesteaded some land and went broke. Then we spent the rest of the day at the old mining town of
Calico, which the Knotts purchased, rebuilt, and turned into a tourist attraction in the 1950s. In the coming days, I'll share photos of the homestead and Calico, along with additional information to shed more light on the Knott's story.