This place absolutely fascinates me. I didn't even know it existed till a couple of years ago, but apparently it's only about 20 minutes away in Ellicott City, MD!
It opened in 1955, as a fairytale-esque amusement park, complete with Cinderella's castle and other nursery ryhme buildings and characters. Over the course of it's life, it gained several mechanical/miscellaneous rides, such as a Jungle safari, the "Little Toot" boat ride, and tea-cup shaped Alice-in-Wonderland cars (among many more). Sometime in the late 80's it shut down, and besides a brief opening in the summer of 95', has been sitting ever since. After the park was sold to developers, much of the land was used to build a shopping center. However, the main park itself still exists, sitting alone in the forest behind tall chainlink fences. There have been several attempts to restore it, but so far the only partially succesful one has been that of "Clark's Elioak Farm", which has been transporting some of the buildings and rides to a different local property, and restoring them for future generations to enjoy. While the original park is walled off to the public, you can see many of the original buildings and attractions at the Elioak Farm, here.
I have to say though, I can't get over the images of the park in it's current state! There's something so eery but compelling about all of these happy fairytale buildings and creatures rotting away, forgotten in the forest. It's like what happens after "happily ever after".
In it's glory days...
As it sits today...
You do know that John Waters used this park in his movie "Cry Baby" right? You see the Castel and several of the rideson the movie. Cool post!
ReplyDeletei LOVE this kind of thing. I would love to go exploring through there. A place once full of life just waiting for someone to rescue it.
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ReplyDeleteSuch a pitty... *tear* Would've been amazing to go there in it's glory day...
ReplyDeleteThe picture with the rusted tea cups is lovely in an eerie way though...
ooo I didn't know that about John Waters..cool..
ReplyDeleteI love this..fascinates me so...I wonder why..
something so sweet, innocent, joyful,
all forgotten and hiding...I love it...
ooo you must have your car by now...hmmmmm
whoopie!!!
OK folks, I grew up in Maryland and as a kid went here on a field trip a few times! It was really a super experience! I remember there being a "cave" of sort that had the 7 dwarfs mining in it. Animatronic 7 dwarfs! At the end was the witch and it was absolutely terrifying!!! Its crazy that you posted this because recently I had been wondering what ever happened to it. I will surely have to do some more research! If I was you, I'd be breaking into that lot but staying far far away from that cave!
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