Calico Ghost Town

Walter Knott returned to a place connected with his childhood and bought the old town. In 1951, the entrepreneur behind Knott's Berry Farm purchased Calico, where he had spent time living with his uncle. He had also helped build a silver-recovery plant here during the First World War. His later restoration drew on photographs of the town in the 1880s, turning personal connections with a mining district into a project visitors could enter.

That district had begun with claims located on April 6, 1881, which formed the Silver King Mine. The town grew as mining expanded in the surrounding mountains. Distance from San Bernardino encouraged Calico to establish its own sheriff, courthouse and judicial district. A settlement organized around mineral extraction also needed institutions to manage the people and business brought by the discoveries. The mines helped determine where the town stood and why so many activities gathered there.