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I’m sure we’ve all heard of the theme park Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park California. Knott’s Berry Farm is a fun filled theme park with rides, a water park, and even a restaurant and hotel. This fun filled amusement park didn’t start as such, however, it started as exactly what the name implies, a berry farm.

In 1920 Walter and Cordelia Knott moved their family to a 20-acre parcel in Buena Park California. The Knott’s were determined to make a successful go of farming, and them as well as their four children Russel, Virginia, Toni, and Marion worked the farm tirelessly, despite their first winter being an especially hard one. Even with the hardships they encountered, the Knott’s were able to produce their first successful crops of rhubarb, asparagus, and berries that they sold on the roadside to locals and those passing by.

As the business grew Cordelia decided to open a tea room where she sold their homemade jellies and jams produced from berries grown there on the farm. Things were going well and the Knott’s’ seemed to have been born for the berry business. Fortune smiled on them again when a family friend Rudolph Boysen, who was also the Anaheim Parks Superintendent, passed on a type of berry he had been trying to produce. Rudolph had been trying unsuccessfully to grow a new type of berry, but kept being met by failure when the berry kept dying on the vine. So, Walter took the scraggly plants to see if he could have more success.

Walter was able to get the little plants to produce berries, and named them boysenberries after the friend who had gifted them to him. Boysenberries are a mix of raspberry, loganberry, and blackberry, and every boysenberry in production in the world today can trace their roots back to the original plant grown by Walter. That’s quite a feat for some berry farmers.

After this successful crop Cordelia expanded her tea room and began advertising homemade biscuits, fried chicken dinners, and boysenberry pies, along with her other jellies and jams. I’m sure many pupils met their Buena Park tutors here for some lessons and delicious food. Word of her great food and this new delicious berry spread around, and people from all over would travel to sample the wares that Cordelia offered.

Today you can still get the jams and jellies produced by Knott’s Berry Farm, and I’m sure we all want to thank Walter for being able to produce something as delicious as the boysenberry! These jams and jellies make a great addition to a quick snack of some toast or crackers in between your lessons with your Buena Park tutor!