Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
There’s a new photo book out that captures, in words and photos, the fantastic history of The Land of Oz theme park in Beech Mountain. The park, created 40 years ago, is long-since closed, but its remnants still stand – including a yellow brick road.
Here’s a tidbit from a recent story in The Mountain Times about Autumn at Oz, an annual gathering for folks who want to relive the parks glory days, or for folks who are just fans of the classic book and movie, The Wizard of Oz. The Autumn at Oz event was held last weekend.
The Land of Oz, created 40 years ago by the same Robbins family that turned Tweetsie Railroad into an entertainment tradition, was an actual theme park until it closed in 1980. Yellow bricks still shimmer through the grass, and you can still see the pillars where the Tin Man’s house used to be.
Dorothy’s house is still there, as are several other gems of a park that touched the memories and minds of the High Country and beyond.
Here’s more about the man behind the photo book. Sounds pretty cool:
He’s a historian, but more than that he’s a photographer with an appreciation for nostalgia. Meet Greg Leng, author of “Land of Oz: Over the Rainbow at Beech Mountain, North Carolina.”
“In the past 40 years since the park first came out, nobody’s done a book, and there was quite a lot of interest in the park,” Leng said.
He can still remember visiting the park as a kid. It’s those memories that helped inspire him to remind others of the magic that was Oz at Beech Mountain.
The obsession started with a single photograph he took of the Yellow Brick Road in the ’70s. After winning awards for the photo, he started getting print requests.
Years later, when he found success as a photographer, he went back to the initial photo.
“When I was a little boy, I had always wanted to own the park,” he said.
As an adult, he figured writing a book would be cheaper.
“The book’s got 127 photographs,” he said. “It’s just like if you visited the park in the 1930s.”
Readers travel through Dorothy’s house at the farm and through the Yellow Brick Road, aided by vintage and recent photographs of the park. A series of interviews, including one with Jack Pentes, the mind behind the park, help create the memory.
“He has such an emotional attachment to the park that I understood why he didn’t want to talk about it,” Leng said. “He wishes the park was open today.”
It was more than a park in its day. It was a museum, complete with the original blue dress from the movie.
Follow Leng on Twitter.
I remember going there in the 70s, as a kid, and yes, it does sort of feel like I dreamed the whole thing. I looked it up online, just to make sure others remembered that place too and found out about this yearly event, but I seem to forget about it again and miss it every year and have subsequently never been to it.
Wow! Quite interesting. I have lived in WNC all of my life – born and raised and I have never stumbled across this. I wish I would've caught the event
It is so odd to see all this information the past couple of weeks about Land of Oz. I must have missed publicity in the past. I obviously visited the park as a small child but until all this came out, I thought I dreamed it!