Every Hoosier knows about Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari in Southern Indiana. Free drinks. Free Sunscreen. Free Parking. During its 78-year history, the amusement park has received just about every national award possible: Friendliest Park, #1 Outdoor Waterpark, Best Overall Waterpark Ride, #1 Wooden Roller Coaster on the Planet: (“The Voyage” named so by TIME magazine), the Cleanest Water Park in the country and Consumers Digest routinely named it their “Top Value Park.” However, few people realize that this Southern Indiana oasis was the very first theme park in the country, predating Disneyland by nearly a decade.
The park opened on August 3, 1945, as Santa Claus Land. Plans for the park were originally conceived as a retirement project by Evansville’s Louis J. Koch (pronounced “Cook”). In 1941, when Koch visited the town of Santa Claus, he was troubled to learn that old St. Nick was nowhere to be found. With nine children of his own, Koch loved children, holidays, and celebrations. Oh sure, there was a 22-foot tall statue of Santa Claus on a hill at the edge of town, placed there in 1935, and a post office visited by countless Midwesterners over the years desiring a prized postmark cancellation for their holiday cards, but where was Santa himself?
As he prepared to ease into retirement, Koch (known as “Mr. Louie” by employees) developed the idea for a park where children could have fun and visit Santa year-round. On August 4, 1946, Santa Claus Land opened free to the public. The park featured a real deal Santa Claus, a toy shop, toy displays, and a restaurant featuring Christmas-themed meals (chicken and turkey dinners) and exotic fare such as Baked Alaska. The four initials for the dining room were F.F.F.F., which stood for Famous For Fine Food. Children’s rides included a Mother Goose train and playground equipment. Mr. Louie was a train enthusiast — a love he shared with his West Coast counterpart, Walt Disney.
In 1955, Santa Claus Land began to charge admission; adults were charged 50 cents while children were still admitted for free. That year, the Pleasureland section made its debut and it still exists today as Rudolph’s Reindeer Ranch. On March 29, 1955, Ronald Reagan visited the park for a photo op with Louis Koch and Santa Claus himself. The trio, led by “Santa Jim Yellig”, toured the park just before the park’s tenth anniversary, after which the future president then visited the Nancy Hanks State Park (now the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial) for another photo op.
The Reagan that visited the park that day may not be the Reagan the world came to know decades later. First of all, in 1955, Ronald Reagan was a Democrat. In 1955, Reagan identified as a “Hollywood Democrat” often citing Franklin D. Roosevelt as his “true hero.” He became a Republican in 1962, coming out as a conservative spokesman in the Goldwater campaign of 1964. Secondly, Reagan was a FORMER president when he visited: Former President of the Screen Actors Guild. Reagan was SAG president six times, in 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, and 1959. Finally, when Reagan visited the park he was the host of CBS TV’s General Electric Theater. His contract required him to tour General Electric (GE) plants 16 weeks out of the year, which often demanded that he give 14 talks per day. He earned approximately $125,000 (equivalent to $1.1 million today) in this role. When Reagan stopped by Santa Claus, he was no doubt traveling between GE plants in Tell City (Indiana) and Owensboro (Kentucky). A few short months after his visit to Santa Claus Land, Reagan hosted the grand opening of Disneyland on July 17, 1955.
While Mr. Louie (1882-1979) was the faithful steward of the park during its embryonic stages, it was Louis Koch’s son William Albert “Bill” Koch and his wife Pat, who would steer the park towards loftier heights. After getting an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1937, “Mr. Bill” conducted post-graduate work at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and served in the Navy in World War II. After the war, Bill was at his father’s side on the day the park opened and eventually took the reins of Santa Claus Land himself. In 1960, Bill Koch married Patricia “Pat” Yellig, the daughter of “Santa Jim,” the park’s official Santa Claus. Jim Yellig was a natural Santa and he was there year-round. When he wasn’t on his throne entertaining children, he was in his sleigh atop the roof greeting the crowds below via a microphone.
Together, Bill and Pat Koch put the town of Santa Claus on the map. In 1962, Bill Koch was at the White House when President John F. Kennedy signed legislation creating the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in nearby Lincoln City, Indiana. The Kochs grew the family fun park from a quaint kiddie park to a world-class theme park. Along the way, they built a gated subdivision known as “Christmas Lake Village” with lakes, tennis courts, and a golf course, a camping resort, a town hall, a medical center, and a bank as they watched the community grow from 37 to 2,000 residents.
Bill Koch served on 27 boards of directors at one time, which has to be some sort of record. He literally changed the map of Indiana by persuading the federal government to reroute Interstate 64 so that it would run through Santa Claus and again by steering U.S. 231 through Spencer County. In 1957, Interstate 64 was originally designed to run through Louisville, north through Vincennes, then on to St. Louis. Bill Koch believed that it would make more sense if it ran straight across the southern part of the state. Koch was told that he would have to get the governors of Indiana and Illinois to agree to get the road changed. It took years, but Koch eventually got the interstate moved south.
Meantime, during Bill and Pat’s stewardship, Santa Claus Land grew to include more shops, shows, a wax museum, and rides. In the early 1970s, additional children’s rides, including Dasher’s Seahorses, Comet’s Rockets, Blitzen’s Airplanes, and Prancer’s Merry-Go-Round, were added. In 1976, Santa Claus Land moved its entrance from State Road 162 to its current location on State Road 245. At the same time, the park began to focus on families, rather than just children. Those shifts are likely the best illustration of Bill & Pat’s teamwork: Bill was the roadman and Pat was the family values advocate.
By 1984, the park had added nine new rides, eight of which were geared towards families: Eagle’s Flight, Rough Riders, Roundhouse, Virginia Reel, Scarecrow Scrambler, Lewis & Clark Trail, Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride, and Thunder Bumpers. The theme park was divided into four sections: Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July. With the inclusion of more than just Christmas, Santa Claus Land formally changed its name to Holiday World. In the following years, Frightful Falls and Banshee were added to the Halloween section, Raging Rapids was added to the Fourth of July section, and Kringle’s Kafé restaurant was built in the Christmas section.
Bill Koch, the man who developed the world’s first theme park and built the town of Santa Claus, passed away at home on September 17, 2001, at the age of 86. Mr. Koch took risks to fulfill his dream of developing the town of Santa Claus and Spencer County into an exceptional Southern Indiana place to live and visit. While Bill may have been a risk-taker, his safest risk came when he asked a petite young woman (and former nun) to be his wife. Marrying Pat Yellig was likely the smartest thing Bill Koch ever did and their union was undoubtedly the best thing to happen to Santa Claus Indiana since that 1946 park opening.
Growing up in nearby Mariah Hill, a few miles north of Santa Claus, Pat was the daughter of Raymond Joseph Yellig (1894-1984). Known as Jim to his friends, Yellig was famous worldwide for over half a century as the “Real Santa Claus.” Jim Yellig found his calling way before the theme park idea was conceived. According to the Santa Claus Hall of Fame, “Yellig appeared at Santa’s Candy Castle and Santa Claus Town, the nation’s first themed attraction, in the late 1930s. He answered children’s letters sent to the Santa Claus Post Office. A World War I veteran and an active Legionnaire, Yellig added to his fame by appearing in American Legion Christmas parades in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.”
Jim Yellig joined the U.S. Navy in 1913, serving onboard the USS Agamemnon. In 1914, while the ship was moored in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the crew decided to throw a Christmas party for the underprivileged children living near the naval base. His shipmates volunteered Yellig to be Santa Claus because his hometown was near Santa Claus, Indiana. Yellig, a devout Catholic, was so touched by the children’s happiness he vowed, “If you get me through this war, Lord, I will forever be Santa Claus”. When the war ended and Jim came through unscathed, Santa Claus Jim Yellig was born.
Starting in 1931, Yellig began answering letters from children addressed to “Santa” in care of the Santa Claus Post Office. Much to the town’s delight, during those Great Depression years, Santa Jim Yellig started visiting the post office dressed in full costume. Yellig became the main attraction at Santa Claus Land; in costume over 300 days a year. His deep voice and cheery “Ho, Ho, Ho,” were heard by thousands of children (young and old) for 54 years, 38 of those in the Santa Claus Land amusement park. Santa Jim wrote his own book in the late 1940s called, “It’s Fun to be A Real Santa Claus.” Yellig appeared on numerous radio and television programs, from the “Original Amateur Hour” with Ted Mack on ABC Radio to What’s My Line and Good Morning America on TV, and he was featured in countless print ads.
Yellig was always quick to help the novice Santa although his daughter Pat was quick to point out that “Dad could not tolerate bad Santas”. Yellig spoke five languages and often surprised foreign children by speaking to them in their native language. Jim Yellig had a few cardinal rules about being Santa: never promise a child a present; all children are good; don’t take a nip before going to work; don’t fall asleep on the job; don’t wear rings and most of all, always engage with the child. Don’t be afraid to ask the child what he or she wants to be when they grow up. In short, talk to them as their best friend. Yellig offered every Santa his “Three “Rs” of being Santa” . . . “To be a great Santa you have to do the research, rehearse the part, and learn how to render the role. You have to become Santa, not to play him”.
When legendary cartoonist Robert Ripley featured the tiny Spencer County, Indiana town, his “Ripley’s Believe It or Not,” readers learned that this was the only post office in the country with the Santa Claus name. With the publication of that 4-panel cartoon in newspapers around the world, the town of Santa Claus was besieged with as many as 2,500 letters a day. A continuing tradition, the town still receives thousands of letters each year from every corner of the globe addressed to Santa Claus. All of which are answered by “Santa’s Elves”. Next week, an interview with Pat Koch, the elf coordinator of Santa Claus, Indiana.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
