California’s Wild West: Wyatt Earp in LA, Knott’s Ghost Town & a Legendary Brothel Tour

Welcome to the best of California. I'm your host Matt Madison. Are you ready to discover the Old West here in California? Well I was surprised at how much is still all around us. Like this building. It's got a direct connection to Wyatt Earp and his brothers when they literally invaded California and set up shop. It's not Tombstone. It's on Wilshire Boulevard in West LA. So let's saddle up and check out the best of California's Old West legacy. Let's head out partner. Of course we're out here somewhere. I gotta go find it. I'm Pat Patterson and I love California. So we're in Marysville, the Silver Dollar Saloon, but upstairs is the Grand Hotel which was a brothel. Let's go check it out. So I'm so excited. We're in Marysville and we are in a historic place with a historian. Russ Hogue and thank you for joining us. You bet. Glad to be here. You are the Grand Hotel historian and tell me about this place. So the building was built in 1851. It's been around a minute as they say nowadays. And the upstairs has been the Grand Hotel its whole life. The downstairs has been a number of different things. And the Grand Hotel operated as a brothel most of its life. Right. And it was one of the last running brothels in California. What year do you think it ran till? I'm going to be surprised. Like the 50s or something? 70s. Mid 70s. Oh my gosh. No never mind. I found one historical rendition that talked about it had 46 bars and 53 brothels. So there was definitely a red light district in Marysville. Marysville was known for the red light district. I found in several different books that I read that in that era Marysville was bigger than San Francisco. Wow. Because nothing was going on in northern California. They got off the docks of the clipper ships, got on a paddle weir, came up river for gold. Everybody's coming for the gold. Right. The saying is many a miner lost his heart and his gold to the women of the Grand Hotel. Oh that's a good one. That's a good one. So all of these buildings up the street were hotels upstairs but in actuality they were brothels. Okay. Some of their business downstairs and their brothel upstairs. And then down here you say this has been through and we met with Joe who's the current owner. Right. He is wonderful. Well his wife owns it. She lets him think. She lets him think. That's right. That's exactly what he said. But at one point it was the Guadalajara Cafe. Okay. And that was owned by Natividad Corona. Okay. Who had a very famous brother named Juan Corona. So you have heard of Juan. Yeah. Yeah. He actually they coined the term serial killer for Juan. Right. He was one of the first ones. What years? He was in the 70s. Yeah. He's the most prolific serial killer of the previous century. His brother ran the Guadalajara Cafe right here. So it's got a little background. It's got a history. Yeah. Old West. New West. Well Russ let's go up and check out the hotel. Sure. Russ you were saying there's only two of these Winchester repeating arms. Is that every caliber of bullet they make? Yeah this particular display they only made two and it's the twin of this is in the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. Wow. So that's kind of cool. Yeah. That is amazing. And you said another family kind of brought all this. There's the local Nicoletti family. They were engineers, contractors and when Joe and Megan took over they recently went through and did another revamp on it and kept the spirit and the history alive. So there's actually the second step has contacts and when you step on it rings a bell in the back. Oh. And then somebody would have been at the door to see who was here and what they wanted. Wow. Look at this place. So this bar came out of the local Lodfellows Hall. So Nicolettis were good about repurposing things. Right. When Joe and Megan took over and embraced the history a lot of the community had things that they liked to donate. The piano over there was actually donated. I'm just glad I wasn't here when it came up those stairs. Wow. Jesus. Yeah. But it looks and fits the period. So a lot of this stuff was here when they bought it but they've redecorated. Right. Yeah. If you look at the top card there what's that? Oh look at this. Frequent Flyer Club. The Frequent Flyer Club for the brothel. Oh my gosh. Nine visits a tent's visits free. We are bent on pleasing you. Oh there's so much inappropriate sex worker stuff that we won't even get into. Right. This is history. So that's our look at the historic Silver Dollar Saloon and Russell Holt thank you so much. Thank you. This has been great. Appreciate you stopping by. Come out to Marysville check out a great historian a great historic legacy here in Marysville. Talk to you soon. I'm so excited. We're in Buena Park. One of my favorite cities here in California. In Orange County Knott's Berry Farm is in Buena Park. And Olivia we are at what part of Knott's Berry Farm? We are now in Ghost Town here at Knott's Berry Farm. This is what started it all. This is what started our theme park. Walter Knott was a very avid collector of western memorabilia and this whole Ghost Town is his collection. And I'm going to get to show you around a little bit. Are you ready? I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm excited. I'm excited. So this this building was actually here when Walter Knott acquired the property of what is now Knott's Berry Farm. He saw it across the street. He loved it and eventually in 1940 he brought it over here to Knott's Berry Farm. He moved it as is. Oh my gosh. And it's still a working blacksmith shop to this day. Wow. And so one of the things that I know is true about Knott's Berry Farm is you're maintaining the old west heritage that a lot of people don't know existed in California. They kind of think of that as the old west somewhere to the east of us, right? Well that's right. There was there was quite a bit of that here. The tour we give here is called Early California and we talk all about how the people were coming out here for the gold rush and they experienced the old west. A lot of these ghosts eventually became ghost towns and that's actually where Walter Knott acquired a lot of our buildings. He collects old buildings from old ghost towns. So what are we looking at here, Olivia? This is Old Betsy. This is another one of Walter Knott's acquisitions from all of his many journeys out to different old west towns. So not only is this an amusement park but it's a museum. That's right. And Walter actually referred to it as a living museum. So this is our birdcage theater. Now I've been talking about how Walter Knott collected a lot of old buildings. This is one that he was not able to acquire. This one is actually based on the real birdcage theater in Tombstone, Arizona. Of course, a lot of Tombstone, Wider, Gunfighter, Dale K. Corral. Of course, Walter was a big fan of that. He wanted the birdcage theater. He found it. He was not able to acquire it because it became a historic landmark. So that didn't deter him though. He said I'll have a replica built here. See here is just the front facade. It's actually an outdoor theater on the other side. And are you a fan of Only Murders in the Building, by chance? Steve Martin? Yes. Did he play here? That's right. This theater skyrocketed his career. He started off performing here right in Knott's Berry Farm in this very theater. Oh my gosh. Is there a plaque? There's got to be a plaque or something. It's on the inside. It's on the inside. Steve Martin. Well, thank you, Steve Martin. Olivia, where are we? Welcome to our schoolhouse. Wow. Now this building is an actual real schoolhouse from Kansas. It's from Beloit, Kansas. It was made in the 1800s and it was eventually bought by Walter Knott. So Walter Knott bought this building in an auction. You want to know how much he bought this schoolhouse for? How much? $253.50. Oh my God. That is so great. And then eventually when he had it here in the 50s, his own grandchildren and the employees of Knott's Children went to school here. Come on. Yeah. We brought new life to the schoolhouse. Oh my God. All right, Olivia, tell us where we are. We're in our graveyard here. It's called our Boothill Cemetery. Every good ghost town has a cemetery and ours is no different. But the fun thing about our cemetery is it has a very famous legend. The legend of the grave of Hiram McTavish. Legend has it if you step on his grave and you feel the heartbeat, it'll bring you good luck. Yeah, you can feel his heartbeat. I guess you're going to have good luck now. Oh, it's going to give me good luck. It will. I love that. And you know what? Seeing you here as the daughter brings me to a very interesting thing about Knott's Scary Farm. So we have our light, hard gags here, like our heartbeat. But during October, this whole place transforms into Knott's Scary Farm. That all started back in 1973. Marion Knott oversaw it. It started with Sinister Seymour. So he was played by Larry Vincent. He was a TV host. He had his own show and he wanted to have it here in Knott's Scary Farm. So Marion Knott had the idea of like, oh, why don't we add a haunted house to that and maybe some more like spooky things. It was three nights long and it was a big hit. And we've been having that event now ever since. We're at Knott's Scary Farm Panned for Gold. I'm here with my friend Digger. Now, Digger, tell us what we're about to get into. This is panning for gold, which has been a part of Knott's Scary Farm since 1947. This was actually one of Walter Knott's very first paid attractions here on the farm. So every day guests come in, they pay a small fee to get a little bit of gold to take home as a souvenir. And this is actual 22 karat gold all the way from the Yukon River in Alaska. That's worth something. That's pretty amazing. I'll just keep this for 100 years and then I'll sell it. There you go. There you go. Let's get going. Hi, it's Pat Pattison with the Best in California Award here in beautiful Columbia at the 49er RV Ranch. I'm with Amy Smith, who works here. And Amy, this is like a miniature Knott's Scary Farm. I love it. It is. It is. We have lots of old timey set back in the 1849 gear. As you can see the water wheel behind me. Gold panning lessons are free for all our kiddos. So yeah. And so you get a lot of RVers up here and you get clubs. This is just beautiful country. And of course, this is the real mother lode country. Knott's Scary Farm is pretend. This is the real authentic place. And Amy, in terms of kind of season, what are the usual busy seasons? Our usual busy season is spring and fall. However, this year we have been booked. My girlfriend and I came up here and found this spot with our VW camper van and there are people, some people are living here semi-permanently, right? Yes. We do have a mobile home park that's attached to the RV park. So we have lots of long-term residents as well as, you know, our overnighters. So how long has this been here? When did it start and how long has the auger had it? Well, they call it the oldest campground in California because back in the day they circled up the wagons during the gold rush and that kind of thing. Yeah. So and the current, that long and the current owners have been the owners for 40 years. So, and it's family run and the son is the general manager. So yeah, it's, it's a very, so when it says that on the sign that says 1852, it means it. It means it, it does. It does. There is, you know, originally just a farmhouse built and the current owners built up this place all around it. So yeah. That's great. Well, such a wonderful place. Thank you, Amy Smith. So an incredible story of the old West in California. I'm here with Dr. David DeHaas, who along with Don Chaput wrote this incredible book, The Earps Invade Southern California. And I love this book. I've read it. And David, remind viewers who Wyatt Earp is. Okay. Well, Wyatt Earp was probably the most famous marshal of the old West, mainly known in Dodge city. He was the marshal in the old cow towns. And it's gunfight at the OK Corral. Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone is where he really, his legend really exploded. The thing that's interesting about this story is it turns out he spent much more of his life in Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Malibu and Beverly Hills. When did the Earps show up at the, who was it? Who was the first Earp to show up? Okay. So we're skipping ahead a little, a little bit. About 1901, the first decade of the 20th century is when everything started to happen. The Earps spent nearly a decade in LA. And it's funny, if you look at every other book on Wyatt, they don't even mention it. And this was like their biggest part of their life together. Not even mentioned in every, all there's hundreds of biographies on one and rarely a mention. Wyatt Earp in November of 1901 is documented being in LA at the, I think the Hollenbeck Hotel. And then in June of 1902, Allie Earp, all of a sudden is documented being, moving from, Virgil's in Prescott at the time. Allie Earp, his wife comes out to LA and that same month, the father, Nicholas Earp, moves into the old soldier's home. Then, early in 1903, Virgil is there too. So all of a sudden, all the brothers, the whole family's there. Adelia Earp, the sister who lived in San Bernardino, is nearby. And they're all documented showing up in LA. End of 1901, early 1902, stuff starts to happen. Just like any family. My family came out of Oklahoma, one half, the other half came out of Virginia. And then other people start sending letters back East saying, hey, it was pretty nice out here. And people start moving. So when, tell me a little bit about, just in terms of the old soldier's home, what was, because I know you mentioned in the book, a lot of the kind of the scandals that were happening with people and the pensions and what not. Explain a little of that to us. One little step is this hotel, as soon as the soldier home opened, they're needed. All of a sudden, now these guys started selling land around the soldier's homes to the families. You know, the soldiers were there, but their families wanted to be nearby too. So they started selling Sawtelle. The city of Sawtelle developed right next to the soldier's home. And that was Fourth Street. And that's on the cover of our book. This Fourth Street is the famous blind pig where all the illegal stuff was going on. Explain what a blind pig is. Okay. All right. So a law was passed in 1895. Robert Bullock in LA passed a law. You couldn't sell liquor within a mile and a half of the soldier's home. So as soon as they made it illegal to be there, all these bootlegging operations opened up. And it's really funny. Speakeasies before there were speakeasies. And we call our book a Guys and Dolls West Coast style. And I don't know, you were probably around when the, yeah, the old play, the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, and then the movie with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra was one of my favorite growing up. The music's beautiful. And because it's exactly the same story. Skye Masterson played by Marlon Brando in the movie was patterned after Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp's good friend and Marshal of the Old West. And there's one story we tell in the book about a barbershop where the guy was a barbershop and he sold, but the police weren't around. They had alcohol in the coffee pot. So everybody, they weren't coming for haircuts. As soon as the cops were gone, they were getting drinking coffee from the coffee truck, everybody there. The gambling table slipping over. Yeah. And then another funny story in the book that we go into is a guy who used to ride around town on a bicycle. And when the police were around, he, you know, he's just right on the bike. When he ran into one of the soldiers on the street, they would put an order in for him and he would ride his bike down Santa Monica where alcohol sales were legal and pick up alcohol. And then he'd come back and deliver, you know, when the police weren't looking, drive all around town, delivering everybody their, their drinks. But I, at the time, 20, 22 years ago, I had no idea how deep this was. And then the thing that got us going is my coauthor, Don Shopwood. He's, he's published a ton of books. He's a great researcher. And he's known as Virgil Earp's biographer. He wrote the seminal book on, seminal book on Virgil Earp. So when you do that, you get a lot of family members writing to you and asking you questions. And he got a question from somebody after he wrote the book that he found in a dump site in Goldfield, Nevada, where Virgil Earp died. Somebody found in the dump site there, a token that said VW Earp on one side, Sawtelle, California, and then on the other side, good for five cents or whatever. Well, VW Earp is Virgil Walter Earp. That's White Earp's brother. And, and all of a sudden, even though Don was Virgil's biographer, he didn't know that Virgil really spent a lot of time there. We knew that the father was there. We knew that the brother Newton was there. We knew that James occasionally appeared, but all of a sudden it turns out Virgil was there too. And then we looked into further and we found all kinds of documentation that White was there. So all the brothers were there. It was your Rosetta Stone. Yeah. Yeah. It was the first decade of the 20th century. They were all there. And were the Earps famous back then? I mean, was the story of Tombstone or White Earp? I mean, would they be, I mean, I noticed some of the White Earp coverages in the newspaper. I mean, were they pretty famous? The Earps were known around the West back when they were alive, back when the, yeah, it wasn't when the book came out in 1903, the books came out in the 1930s. And when the movies came out in 1930, mid 1930s. And so that's how I look at the Earps invade Southern California. Get the book. Thank you, Dr. David DeHaas. So the secret behind the old soldier's chapel, it's two churches. It's got a big wall down the middle, Catholic on one side, Protestant on the other. They could hold services at the same time and not hear each other. Wyatt Earp's father's memorial was held here when he was a resident of the bigger old soldier's home that used to be here on this facility. Now it's the modern VA incredible facility and the national cemetery, all part of our old West legacy here in California. You got to look for it. And we got to save this building. I'm Pat Pattison. See you next time.