Step right up, pardner, and meet Joe

He’s Orange County’s oldest incarcerated criminal, he has received mailbags full of love letters and he hasn’t aged for 74 years.

Sad Eye Joe, the beloved character and sole occupant at Knott’s Berry Farm Jail since 1941, may be a wooden man wearing a frown, but he can speak, call you by name and read your mind.

It’s an attraction that began decades ago when founder Walter Knott built the amusement park’s Ghost Town in 1940.

At the time, people would line up at the roadside stand on Grand Avenue in Buena Park for Mrs. Knott’s famous fried chicken, biscuits and boysenberry pie. The dinners were so popular that visitors would wait three or more hours for the meal, and to bide their time, they would wander the Knott’s family farm.

Recognizing the need to distract the waiting customers, Walter Knott decided to entertain and engage them with attractions. Visitors could marvel at a beehive behind glass and look at covered wagons and grinding wheels in the property’s Western museum.

But determining that the installed gardens, monkey cages and other curiosities did not suffice, Knott began constructing Ghost Town, a tribute to the history of the Old West and the first development of the now-famous theme park.

He took bits and pieces from old buildings in Western towns, including sliding, roofing, doors and windows, to use in the design.

Knott hired Andy Anderson, a sculptor and woodworker who carved the farm’s covered wagons, to create wooden figures that could be placed in the empty Ghost Town buildings.

Anderson made Hop Wing Lee, the proprietor of the Chinese Laundry who irons endlessly, singing western tunes in Mandarin; the barber who shaves One Eye Ike and contemplates the “wanted” poster hanging nearby; a sheriff playing a crooked poker game; and Sad Eye Joe, who was originally thrown into jail for murder but whose crime changed to horse theft.

Though the characters were amusing, Sad Eye Joe stood out because he could converse with guests.

To entice people, Ghost Town’s Gold Dust Goldie’s Hotel featured a real person dressed as the sheriff who would ask a few details about the visiting group and encourage them to visit Sad Eye Joe in the town jail next door. The group would then be surprised by the inmate’s insightful comments.

Unbenown to the visitors, the sheriff is the voice of Sad Eye Joe. And in using the information he had obtained through the earlier casual conversation, he could then baffle the guests with his knowledge of their lives.

“It’s the simplest thing ever and still fools everyone because Sad Eye Joe magically knows everybody’s name and history,” said historian Eric Lynxwiler, who worked at Knott’s Berry Farm in college and documented the amusement park’s history with fellow author Christopher Merritt.

Miles Frederick, one of the four people who voice Sad Eye Joe, said that when he sits in front of the jail window, he tries to pick up things from visitors by looking for birthday buttons, reading sport team names on clothing and listening for names.

The majority of guests greet Sad Eye Joe and some will stay for several minutes chatting up the prisoner, Frederick said.

“You have to be able to read the guests and you have to keep things light,” he said.

Lynxwiler said Sad Eye Joe gained popularity among guests because his character is interactive and has a sense of humor. His mug was even put on Knott’s souvenirs, key chains and glassware.

“I think people just loved the pre-television era of a strange celebrity in their backyard,” he said.

The character hasn’t changed much through the years, though Lynxwiler estimated that Sad Eye Joe is on his third head — the original by Anderson is on view in the park’s Western Trails Museum.

Today, the novelty of Sad Eye Joe is still popular, amusing children and adults.

“Parents who were fooled when they were children are passing it down to the next generation,” Lynxwiler said. “It’s definitely a family thing. Maybe that’s what’s keeping him alive.”

Being behind bars hasn’t stopped Sad Eye Joe from playing matchmaker, helping high school students ask dates to the prom.

And he is loved in return. Lynxwiler says the fan letters pour in, some expressing a romantic interest, tongue in cheek of course.

But his charm won’t be enough to free him from his sentence any time soon, said Dave Bowman, supervisor of park shows at Knott’s Berry Farm.

“He won’t be leaving us,” Bowman said. “You’ll never see him anywhere else.”