There’s no place like Knoebels.
Nestled inside Northeast Pennsylvania's forested mountains, the pay-as-you-go amusement park boasts retro rides and games, award-winning food, and campgrounds — among many other amenities. Its affordable prices and throwback atmosphere have earned it a global and fiercely loyal following. Some rank it among the best amusement parks in the world.
The park will have been in operation for 100 years on July 4, and has managed to remain consistent even as it’s grown into a full-on resort. Nine members of the family that founded it still work there and call the shots.
Brian Knoebel, 52, said his earliest memory of working at the park founded by his great-grandfather is handing out “a little Dixie cup of ice cream” at catered events. Since then, he’s stepped into many other roles, from trash crew to ride inspector to funnel cake maker. Last fall, he succeeded his father as president of the park.
Ahead of the centennial, Knoebel spoke with PA Local about the park’s ups and downs, its commitment to free admission, and its knack for taking visitors a “step back in time.”
This interview has been condensed for length and edited for clarity.
PA Local: Could you tell me a little bit about how Knoebels got started?
Brian Knoebel: My ancestors came over from Germany, and one was actually a minister on horseback. They bought a plot of land where two streams come together. And we built our lumberyard. We were farmers — my ancestors were — and they made charcoal, and they had Christmas trees and potatoes, and they had animals.
The farm itself was slightly upstream. People started to find out that the two creeks came together at one spot, and … it formed a natural swimming hole. After church on Sunday, they’d come down and park their horse and buggy off to the side, and frolic in the stream and have a little picnic. My great-grandfather would feed and stable your horses for, I believe, a quarter. Little by little, he started building some picnic tables and park benches, and on July 4, 1926, we opened a swimming pool, a restaurant — appropriately named “The Restaurant” — and we rented a steam-powered carousel.
What do you think is the biggest difference between Knoebels now versus when it was founded?
Well, first I’m going to tell you how it’s the same. The canopy of trees that exist here in the park is something that we take a lot of pride in. We kind of have an unwritten rule that whenever we take a tree out for expansion, that we put a tree back in.
Envision … people sitting along the creek kind of behind our Grand Carousel. Just sitting on a park bench, sharing a banana split, and that little bit of a breeze that’s coming down the stream, and hearing the ripple. That’s how it hasn’t changed.
How has it changed? We started with one ride, and one food stand, and the pool. We now have 60 rides, I believe 38 food stands, 24 games, and water slides. We have a campground that is attached to the park. We have a second campground about three miles away called Lake Glory. Quarter-mile down the road, we own the 18-hole golf course, complete with a bar and tavern. We have enough seating for 10,000 people for our group sales and catering business.
I used to go to Knoebels pretty much every year when I was a kid, and I’ve always thought of it as a place with a kind of vintage, throwback vibe. How do you balance change and growth with preserving the park’s history and that sense of nostalgia?
When my ancestors were trying to build the business … they would lease a small piece of the land to a family, and that family would build a cottage on the land. And then little by little, our growth was starting to take place. We would buy the cottage from that family, and we would turn it into a gift shop or a game. So, many of the buildings that exist today used to be a cottage.
We absolutely know our brand. We know our fans. And that throwback amusement park from yesteryear is exactly who we continue to be. We don’t have roller coasters that reach the clouds. We have rides for thrill seekers … but, of course, we have more traditional rides. Sadly, when other parks close, or they want to make room for something bright and shiny, we’ll make an offer to them and move it here, because again, that’s who we are.
Knoebels is known as the largest free-admission amusement park in the country. Why have free admission?
Again, it’s who we are. It’s that traditional park. Through the years when trolley parks would be built, little by little, they started putting up a fence around the outside. I think they learned that you can make more money if you charged everybody admission.
But we recognize that grandma and grandpa get more satisfaction out of watching their grandkids ride the rides than they do themselves. And grandma and grandpa are on a limited income. So they don’t pay to park. We don’t force you to buy food in the park — if you want to bring a picnic lunch, then bring a picnic lunch.
Do you think that it’s something that would ever change about the park?
Asha, I had to pinky swear to never change it.
Has there ever been a struggle to keep going when you’re not charging people to come in, or has that not been as much of an issue as one might think?
We probably have more challenges than what one might think.
The creek that runs through the park is our best friend on a hot summer day. There’s a little breeze that comes down through there cooling down your guests under that canopy of trees. But after a couple days of rain, when it starts to come over the creek bank a little bit, it becomes your worst enemy. And sadly, our team … We all have our masters or doctorate in flooding.
COVID, that was quite a challenge as well. Nobody really knew what it was. We were supposed to open the last weekend of April in 2020. And I believe it was in mid-March when our government shut all the businesses down. By that time … the items were already ordered. Somebody had to unload the trucks. Somebody had to clean the gutters, and somebody had to turn the water on. We were only allowed to have a handful of people, so we were pretty much working ‘round the clock. Thankfully, we met our goal and we were able to get open on July 1, 2020, with protocols and social distancing.
We actually lost a lot of staff during that time. We had some staff that were getting near retirement age, and they hung it up a little bit early because they were just nervous. But we got through 2020, and 2021 was — I personally am a firm believer we are not meant to be locked up like we were — and people came from far and wide, and we went from having a not very busy 2020 to a very crowded 2021, which brought on other challenges.
I wanted to go back to all these floods that the park has seen over the years. What lessons have you learned about how to prepare for these?
How long is your article? Number one: nobody works by themselves. [If] the creek is starting to rise, we know to split up in teams.
Because we own a lumberyard, we get lengthy pieces of conduit and strategically place them near the water — so that if anybody would happen to get too close and they go in, various team members can grab these conduits, and the person in the water, you pull them out. They’re always in place, and knock on wood, thank the good Lord, we’ve never had to use them.
You learn things like, “What is the lowest point in the park?” It’s our miniature golf course. So you pull things out of the miniature golf course. Once that’s done, you move on to the second-lowest and the third-lowest.
We have five dams in the creek throughout the park. And we have those dams because more parks have been lost to fire than flood. So if the water is starting to come up … we get some maintenance guys, we get some security guards if it happens during the summer, and keep the crowd away, and one by one we start pulling the dams. And you can see the creek water drop sometimes three feet.
My cell phone rings quite a bit. Our community reaches out, and it’s as simple as, “Where do you need me?” Or, “What can I bring?” And they just show up.
Are there any other ways in which you think that Knoebels’ location really influences the park and its identity?
Our location is both the best of worlds, and the worst of worlds. I have friends in the industry that have never been here, and they'll reach out to me and they'll say, “Jeesh! You’re in the middle of nowhere. You’re 20 minutes from [I-80], and you’re 30 minutes from [I-81].” Most destinations are much closer to an interstate or an airport. So it’s fantastic where we’re at, because if we were closer to an interstate, maybe we wouldn’t be able to handle the crowd. So because you have to want to come here, maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.
I want to wrap up with a rapid-fire question round. What’s your favorite ride?
Phoenix.
What is your favorite place to eat in the park?
The Alamo, for the chicken and waffles.
What is something that a first-time visitor to Knoebels absolutely should not miss?
Take a lap. Before you buy anything, before you play a game or you buy a ride, take it all in. Then go make your decision.
What is one fun fact about Knoebels that might surprise people?
First thing that came to mind is [that it’s] still owned and operated by the Knoebel family. There’s been, through the years, people that have tried to buy us, and we don’t even entertain the thought.