In 1970, die-hard "Wizard of Oz" fans were thrilled to discover that Land of Oz, a theme park dedicated to the 1939 film, was opening on North Carolina's Beech Mountain. Though the theme park had 10 years of success, the combination of a destructive fire in 1976 followed by financially hard times meant the park had to cease operations, reported the Huffington Post. Today, the magic of the park can be re-lived once a year at the Autumn in Oz event — or through a newly-published photo series by Seph Lawless.
The park had originally been conceived as a way to keep the ski employees of Beech Mountain busy in the summer and it worked — it came second only to Disney World in theme park attendance, reaching up to half a million visitors in one summer, reported the Examiner.
At the park, you could walk the yellow brick road, take a hot air balloon ride, be terrified by the talking trees and visit Dorothy's farm. After it was shuttered in 1980, the park became home to wildlife, vandals and trespassing teenagers. As you can imagine, the park looks very different today, and Huffington Post photographer Seph Lawless published a series of pictures for his new book "Bizarro" that show that though the park is now eerie and deeply abandoned, it still boasts the magic of Oz. "It sits hidden on top of one of the highest mountain peaks in the eastern U.S., so being there was almost like entering another planet. It was surreal and completely beautiful," he said.
This video, posted on YouTube by the State Archives of North Carolina, shows the park in its heyday.
Lawless' photos below show the eerie, abandoned side of the park, as well as the beauty that has endured.
