BUENA PARK, Calif.—“Do you want me to get a picture of you kissing this giant Boysenberry?” a man jokingly asked a Knott’s Berry Farm park-goer over the sounds of people joyfully screaming from an overhead rollercoaster.
“Do it, this thing is huge!”
In celebration of National Boysenberry Day on April 3, the Knott’s Berry Farm theme park not only adorned it’s 160-acre property with purple color schemes and giant boysenberry statues, but also outfitted its various cafes with boysenberry-flavored dishes for park guests to enjoy.
“I’ve been having a lot of fun out here today riding the rides and trying out all of the boysenberry dishes,” annual park pass holder John from Fountain Valley, California, told The Epoch Times as he stood in line for a boysenberry pie-eating contest.
“They even have boysenberry jambalaya for sale down by the GhostRider rollercoaster, which was amazing, I should add!”
A Berry Created in California
It was over 100 years ago when Walter and Cordelia Knott moved to a small town named Buena Park to start a farm on 20 acres of rented land with the goal of growing berries. However, it was not until the 1930s when Walter became associated with the “boysenberry”—the large, purple, sweet-tasting berry which would become the Knott family trademark.Just down the road from the Knott family farm at the time in the City of Anaheim, park superintendent Rudolph Boysen had been experimenting with a new strain of berry but had since abandoned the project—all that changed once he connected with Walter Knott. The experienced farmer took the few remaining scraggly plants and nurtured them to grow into the world’s newest berry under the name the boysenberry.
A cross between a loganberry, red raspberry, and blackberry, all boysenberries in the world trace their roots to Knott’s Berry Farm and the days before its world-famous roller coasters. Every year, the park celebrates the berry with its own festival.
“Look, they even have boysenberry salsa,” one woman in the park’s entryway gift shop told her husband as she pushed a stroller.
Ending Next Month
What started with the humble beginning of a great depression-era local berry farm in Buena Park over a century ago has now evolved into the 12th most visited theme park in the United States.
Along with being California’s first ever theme park, Knott’s now features live stage shows, world-famous roller coasters, and of course: Knott’s signature boysenberry jam available at shops around the park.
The Knott’s Boysenberry Festival will be held daily from March 10 to April 16, and on the weekends April 21 through May 7.
