Sad-Eye Joe:
In a corner of Knott’s Berry Farm’s Ghost Town sits the town jail, home to Orange County’s longest jailed inmate, Sad-Eye Joe. Joseph Nagnapper (his “real” name) was originally thrown in jail for stealing the Ghost Town sheriff’s horse – a horse so slow “he almost went backwards,” according to Joe.
Sad-Eye Joe is a wooden character that sits in the jail. He “talks” to park visitors with the help of an unseen park employee’s voice. In fact, those in the know can secretly give Joe’s voice the name and other information about visitors so that he can more readily converse with them through the jail window. Walter Knott had the idea for him as an attraction for the Ghost Town he was building next to the popular Chicken Dinner Restaurant. Andy Anderson carved the original wooden figure and in 1940 Sad-Eye Joe was soon chatting it up with people waiting around to get a chicken dinner.
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