Celebrate Marion Knott Montapert

[...]As their parents aged, the Knott children and grandchildren headed various management positions with Marion leading as the director of design, planning, and entertainment. Her attentions focused more and more on the amusement aspects of the Farm and, under her direction, a new themed area, Fiesta Village, was added to the growing Ghost Town in 1969. In 1974, sensing the public’s growing desire for bigger and faster thrills, she began shopping for the world’s most unusual thrill rides and gave the world its first Corkscrew roller coaster and later a 20-story Sky Jump. A subsequent revamping of Fiesta Village in 1978 added the ultimate shuttle loop ride, Montezooma’s Revenge to Knott’s array of thrill rides.

Of Knott’s she says, “We’re different from Disneyland or any of the other theme parks. While those other parks are based on a fantasy or future theme, we’re based on nostalgia, on history.” Marion was a stickler for following the Farm’s nostalgia rule, was proud of the park’s penchant for detail and noted that the rides themselves are bound to the park by heritage. Knott’s 1881 locomotive, for example, was transported to Knott’s Ghost Town from Denver, Colorado and represents an original piece of American history saved by the Knott family.

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