The Buffalo Ranch! Lost Amusement Park in Newport Beach? Who was Texas Tiny?

Hi, it's Pat Patterson. We're in Newport Beach, California, and there used to be an amusement park here. There's a buffalo behind me. It's the Buffalo Ranch, Geronimo's Grandson, and Texas Tiny. I can't believe it. Lisa Taylor, let's go check it out. Sounds good to me, but do you want to know who Texas Tiny was? Hold on, let them figure it out later. Let's go. Okay. So we're here in Newport Beach, California, and I'm with Lisa Taylor, author of the Lost Amusement Parks of Southern California, and this is where a lost amusement park used to be, and there's a buffalo behind me. Why is that, Lisa? Because there used to be an amusement park called the Buffalo Ranch, where families would come and roam the range and ride animals and play and have fun and eat buffalo burgers. And I used to do that when I was a kid. Let's go check it out. Yeehaw! This is where the Buffalo Ranch used to be. We're standing on hallowed ground. I know, and I can't believe it. It's so noisy and so different than what I wrote about and what I researched about. And I came here as a kid, and so Gene Clark started this. Tell me a little bit about how the Buffalo Ranch came about. Okay, well, it was 1954, and Gene Clark, I guess, had a ranch in Kansas, and so he shipped out his bison, which he called buffalo, and had this. So many myths from the 50s that we have to learn about. And he decided that this would be a great place for a theme park. And so I think it was 115 acres, and he set up, you know, like a barn and a ranch. I remember it well. You have all the memories. Yeah, but you have the facts. I was five. Well, do you remember a fire engine? I do remember like go-kart tracks, as I recall. And I remember eating buffalo burgers. Okay, that's, yeah. You know where those buffalo burgers came from? No, where'd they come from? Where do you think? The buffalo that we were petting. Yes, exactly. They didn't go very far for that. And he built a barn, a silo. You know, he had pony rides, and burrow rides. There were chickens, and goats, and all kinds of animals roaming. And, of course, the buffalo. And they had like old stagecoaches where the families could go and, you know, take kind of a... A little like Knott's Berry Farm. Yeah, yeah. And when you would come down, I mean, this is my memory, when you'd come down from MacArthur here, there was a buffalo ranch, there was the gun club, and then there was the dump. And that was what you saw. That was your choice of where you would go? That was where you could go. Okay, well, I wouldn't go to the dump, so. And this was all Irvine Ranch, obviously. I think he leased the land from the Irvine. I think he was the first person to set up a business or something, from lease it from the Irvine Company. And anyway, he had two restaurants, and my favorite was Buffalo Burgers, which, of course, like you mentioned, you remembered that there were bison or buffalo burgers. And to promote it, here again is the showman part of him, he got this... He was a DJ, and his name was Texas Tiny, and he weighed 400 pounds, and he had a real slick cowboy suit that was done by probably, I think it was Nudie's in North Hollywood. So, they have pictures of Texas Tiny sitting in front of the burger place, eating a giant hamburger that's the size of a pizza. And then Gene clogs off to the side in his cowboy outfit, and he's kind of yucking it up. And it was a great photo op, what can I say? Yeah, and it was the 50s, so there was a lot of excitement around Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and because we've done multiple segments about the Pike, tell me some of the other lost attractions here in Southern California. There's so many that I was shocked, and then as I was writing the book, people would tell me of one more, and it was shocking. But the ones I remember were Lion Country Safari, which was close by in Irvine, somewhere yonder, and Marine Land, which I never got to go to, but that was designed by William Pereira, whose offices he set up right here once the Buffalo Ranch closed. That's right, Urbana Square, right? Yeah, Urbanus. You say Urbanus, I say Urbanus. Urbanus. Urbanus. That even sounds more intellectual. Yeah, and some of these parks were designed by well-known architects in Southern California, because mid-century was their moment. Wow, this whole Southern California area just has so much history to it. Any projects you're working on now? Sure, but nothing to speak of. A little bit more to be continued. We have a mystery. We have a secret here with Lisa. Well, Lisa Taylor, thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much.