Walter Knott's first volcano sat right outside a window of the expanding Chicken Dinner Restaurant and served a useful purpose — to cover up a cement irrigation pipe. The disguise, a faux volcano Walter covered in lava rock from Barstow, came with a story right out of the tall tales of the old West. Apparently, Walter was wandering the Mojave Desert when he discovered the "last active volcano in California." Always interested in sharing his amusing discoveries, he picked up and moved that volcano to Knott's Berry Farm in November 1939. The volcano was accompanied by a mini devil who would turn a crank at the foot of the smoking volcano and cause it to rumble ominously. After a little more than a decade, both devil and volcano were moved when the original location was pushed aside by Cordelia's dining rooms. The new volcano found itself on the backside of the Pan for Gold mountain range in 1950 where it sat until the construction of the GhostRider roller coaster in 1998.