Just steps from Pat Koch’s Santa Claus museum is the town’s first post office (built in 1856) and mere yards from that, the town’s first Catholic Church (1880 building: 1853 incorporation date), both saved and preserved through Pat’s efforts. All three buildings stand nearby the original 1935 Santa Claus statue, the landmark the town was so identified by before Bill and Pat Koch built the amusement park. Pat said, “Santa Claus Land bought that (post office) and put it at their park because it was going to ruin. They made it into a House of Dolls museum. The Kochs were all collectors and those dolls were part of their collection.”
“At one point two people came here, they were going to do tourism. One of them was Carl Barrett, who built the statue. He called this (the clearing around the statue) Santa Claus Park.” Pat continued, “At one point there was a great big hole in front of the statue, touted as being a meteor crater.” Pat laughed while recalling that early episode and said, “Gill Fahr dug that hole, later on, he worked for us at the park. He told me they threw pieces of metal in that hole to make it look more authentic. It was all designed to bring people here before we built the park.”
Mrs. Koch recalled that era, “there was a big squabble between those two men, about who’s doing what, who owned the land, who owned the rights, who held the lease all that stuff. It made the newspapers all over.” She pointed to one of the newspapers hanging on the wall of the museum and, with her finger following the headline, read, “See here Trouble in Santa Claus Land. Then the war came along and everything quit and went to complete ruin. There was a wishing well near the statue and an archway entrance between the reindeer. We want to rebuild those.”
Daryl Lovell, the Dale Indiana native and Spencer County historian who arranged my interview with Mrs. Koch, outlined the story in his 1993 sesquicentennial book Dale, Indiana 1843-1993. The feuders were Carl Barrett (1890-1978) and Milton Harris (1898-1950). Barrett called himself a “champion of Christmas integrity” as a swipe to Harris but in reality, stretched the truth himself. He claimed that the hole in the ground near the statue was formed by a “falling star” on Christmas Day and that was how the town got its name. Later Barrett told people that his massive Santa was carved out of Mount Airy granite (straight out of the Andy Griffith show). The star-shaped base of the statue was created to honor that tall tale.
Barrett told reporters that President Roosevelt might unveil the statue by remote control and that the governors of Indiana and Kentucky might attend. When it came time to drop the tarp after the hour-long ceremony, the rope was pulled by local school kids. No Franklin D. Roosevelt, No Governor. The only local luminary that showed up was the mayor of Evansville. But the public loved it anyway. Lovell commented, “there was a live radio feed from Chicago for the event. It was snowing and cars were lined up along the roadway for miles. It was a big deal.” Barrett declared that Santa Claus Park would become “a children’s dream paradise.” More people showed up for the unveiling than lived in the entire town of Santa Claus (pop. 60 at the time).
Harris created a small Christmas attraction within earshot of Barrett’s statue. The centerpiece was a building he named the Candy Castle. The feud culminated when Harris opened his Castle on the same day, December 22, 1935, when Barrett unveiled his statue. “It was called the enchanted village and you could walk through it. It had soldiers at the entrance and little houses, Buddy-L hut, Buddy-L diggers, dolls, and there were rifles,” Pat Koch recalled with a chuckle. “All those little huts were named after different toys. You could walk through there but you couldn’t go in. You had to look through a window to see them.”
Ultimately, Barrett was forced out of business by a series of lawsuits won by Harris. Those courtroom victories nearly bankrupted Harris and his Santa Claus Town never really grew much beyond the Candy Castle. Pat Koch recalled that in 1950 Milton Harris “died while shouting at some guy in the Castle parking lot. He walked out to yell at him and collapsed.” Barrett lived another 28 years, lasting well into his eighties always insisting that his statue was granite and the meteor crater was real.
After years of abandonment and neglect, The Koch family restored Barrett’s Santa statue in 2011. Pat explained, “we sandblasted layers of paint off of the statue and rebuilt the base, restoring Santa’s original white glow. We rebuilt the statue’s crumbling star and pedestal and cleaned up the surrounding property. We saved the pieces of the crumbled base and they are on display right over there in that case.” And Pat concluded, “Despite what Carl Barrett said, the statue is made of concrete.”
Daryl Lovell added, “a couple of those buildings are still there but they’re in bad shape.” The Candy Castle still stands and was renovated a few years ago by a couple who turned it into a candy shop. Pat explained, while pointing at a photograph of the original town, “this is the town laid out, it had a mill, a restaurant, bar, the Candy Castle, the church meeting hall, a blacksmith shop, a barbershop, beauty shop, and the post office, the postmasters all used to live in the post office . . . and of course now that’s not like that at all.” The area Mrs. Koch was speaking of is now vacant land with no hint that any of the buildings and homes once located in that busy little Main Street section ever existed.
Inside Pat’s museum is a life-sized depiction of her father, Santa Jim Yellig, dressed in one of the Santa suits he wore for all those years, right down to his boots and belt. “He was always proud of that belt and when I found those boots I had to work hard to clean them up. They were still covered with dirt and mud from the last time dad wore them. I thought my dad was the best person in the world because he made so many people happy.” Not only does the museum display of her father include the clothes he wore, it also features the original storybook backdrop, props, toys, and even the suitcase her father used to travel with.
“I have an entire level of my house full of boxes from those early years of Santa Claus land. I hope someday to build a proper museum for all of it. I already know, we could have a Lincoln room, a doll room, grandpa Koch had a marvelous collection of antique trains, and a Santa Claus room, I think we would need one room dedicated to the Koch family that did everything here, all the town history. And here’s my plan, at the end of all these rooms I’d have an avenue of Santa Clauses from every land, you know France, Switzerland, Italy, St. Nicholas and at the very end this (the effigy of her father) with snow coming in and of course Christmas music.”
Pat pointed out that her husband Bill always made it a point to their children, contrary to what they may think, not every idea was a winner. “Bill would tell them that he’d made some mistakes along the way. Not all of them were good ones. But he made it a point to tell them they had to keep trying.” Pat then laughed as she said, “Our kiddie land was called ‘Pleasureland’ and the slogan was ‘a gay paradise.’ Of course you couldn’t do that nowadays.” then added, “For people who don’t know what they’re doing, we’re doing all right.”
The old Santa Claus Land contained a historical wax museum with several figures of Spencer County’s own Abraham Lincoln. I asked Pat to reflect on that museum. “I’m sorry we got rid of the wax museum. I really regret that but we were right in the midst of developing the new park and raising children. Not to mention it was a big old building right in the middle and we had to keep it at a certain temperature all the time and had to keep a close eye on the wax figures because people were stealing things off of the figures, sticking bubblegum on them writing graffiti on them. But I really do wish we would’ve hung on to them.”
When asked about those wax figures, Pat responded with a laugh in her voice, “we brought them down and put them in the toy museum for a while. We had them stored here laying all over the floor which made for quite a start for volunteers coming in early in the morning and late at night.” When Daryl Lovell asked Mrs. Koch what happened to them in the end, she responded, “somebody bought them and what I remember is this pickup truck driving out with all these statues sticking out and I thought if somebody passes that on the highway they are gonna…” then trails off in laughter.
Next Week — Part 4- The Conclusion of Santa Claus Indiana’s Pat Koch: The Elf Coordinator.
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.
