More from my Land of Oz photo collection. Previous posts are here, here & here. It has been over a year since I posted any of these. More to come. ~Vic
The Blue Ridge Mountains
as seen from the Park.
Circa: Early 1970s
Image Credit: Emerald Mountain RealtyFountain at the Entrance to the Park. Circa: Early 1970s
Image Credit: Emerald Mountain RealtyDorothy & Toto Sculpture
It is my understanding that this bust
is missing…stolen like other artifacts.
Image Credit: Emerald Mountain RealtyFollow The Yellow Brick Road
Circa: Early 1970s
Image Credit: Emerald Mountain RealtyScarecrow
Circa: Middle 90s
Image Credit: Emerald Mountain RealtyTin Man’s House
Salvaged in the early 90s
Image Credit: Emerald Mountain RealtyCowardly Lion
Circa: Middle 90s
I swear he looks more like Stephen King’s IT
Image Credit: Emerald Mountain RealtyYou found the Wizard.
Circa: Middle 90s
Image Credit: Emerald Mountain Realty
Lovely close-up of Debbie Reynolds in a museum that was once there.
Click for a larger view.Land of Oz’s first Dorothy viewing one of Judy Garland’s dresses.
The dress was stolen in the 1980s.
Click for a larger view.Ski lift gondolas.
Click for a larger view.This was a balloon ride that was created from the ski lifts.
I rode it, once, with my parents in a blinding rain storm.
Click for a larger view.Brochure from around 1973.
Click for a larger view.Another brochure.
Click for a larger view.Second page.
Click for a larger view.
Their father, Grover Cleveland Robbins, Sr., was the Mayor of Blowing Rock, NC (several terms), served as the postmaster, started the Chamber of Commerce in 1922 and helped start the first high school there. Our Blue Ridge Parkway, here in NC, is because Robbins, Sr., was sent to Washington, D.C., by our, then, Governor, to make sure it would not be built in Tennessee.
Flag at the Entrance
Image is from the early 1970s
09-08-2017
In September of 2017, I paid a visit to a place I had not seen since I was about six years old…the Land of Oz. I remember bits and pieces of the trip. My parents took me in 1972 and two of my strongest memories are of riding on the balloon ride (a converted ski-lift) in a blinding mountain rainstorm and the wet ride in a bus, with no windows, down the mountain, leaving. For years, I wondered what had become of that park.
Originally opening on June 15, 1970, it was a grand place to visit and managed to stay open for a decade, even after a fire in 1975, before falling into disrepair and abandonment. Many things were stolen, vandalized or left to nature.
Appalachian State University had a cultural museum, at one time, that showcased saved pieces from the park including the yellow bricks, some munchkin houses, costumes, parts of the witch’s castle and other assorted props. All artifacts were eventually returned to the park.
By the 80th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz movie, 12,000 guests had come through in June of 2019. I have tons of pictures of this place, old and new and, I will be posting them over time. ~Vic
Picture snapped in the 90s
Photo Credit: Emerald Mountain Realty
The story chronicles the adventures of a young farm girl named Dorothy in the magical Land of Oz after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their Kansas home by a cyclone.
The book is one of the best-known stories in American literature and has been widely translated. The Library of Congress has declared it “America’s greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale.” Its groundbreaking success and the success of the Broadway musical adapted from the novel led Baum to write thirteen additional Oz books that serve as official sequels to the first story.
Baum dedicated the book “to my good friend & comrade, My Wife,” Maud Gage Baum. In January 1901, George M. Hill Company completed printing the first edition, a total of 10,000 copies, which quickly sold out. It sold three million copies by the time it entered the public domain in 1956.
Image Credit: wikipedia.org
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is considered the first American fairy tale because of its references to clear American locations such as Kansas and Omaha. Baum agreed with authors such as Carroll that fantasy literature was important for children, along with numerous illustrations but, he also wanted to create a story that had recognizable American elements in it such as farming and industrialization. Baum did not offer any conclusive proof that he intended his novel to be a political allegory.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has become an established part of multiple cultures, spreading from its early young American readership to becoming known throughout the world. It has been translated or adapted into well over fifty languages, at times being modified in local variations. For instance, in some abridged Indian editions, the Tin Woodman was replaced with a horse. In Russia, a translation by Alexander Melentyevich Volkov produced six books, The Wizard of the Emerald City series, which became progressively distanced from the Baum version, as Ellie and her dog Totoshka travel throughout the Magic Land. More recently, the story has become an American stage production (The Wiz) with an all-black cast, set in the context of modern African-American culture.
Here in North Carolina, we have the Land of Oz at Beech Mountain. I went there in 1973 with my parents and, again, in 2017. ~Vic
