Scavenger Chic

A Trip Down Memory Lane, The Enchanted Forest

• By Joan
• August 10, 2017
• 9 Comments

If you lived anywhere near Maryland during the 50’s and 60’s you will probably recognize this fairy tale castle.

The Enchanted Forest opened in the summer of 1955. Unlike Disneyland in California which opened the month before, The Enchanted Forest  was low-tech featuring fairy tales and nursery rhymes.

“There are no mechanical rides in the park,” Howard E. Harrison Jr. told the Baltimore News-Post in an article that ran on the Enchanted Forest ‘s opening day, Aug. 15, 1955 . “Instead, we hope that the children will enjoy the make-believe figures that are before their eyes.”

“I say children, but actually, we think that many grown-ups will enjoy seeing the famous old figures that they knew when they were children,” he added.

When the park opened, admission was $1.50 and what started out as 8 acres grew over the years  to 25 acres. In the late 1970s and into the 1980s  the admission price was $2.10 for children and adults and the park drew 350,000 to 400,000 visitors from May to October.

I remember entering  the park, walking over the drawbridge and thru the castle gates.  (I also remember being kind of disappointed in the castle which just held the ticket counter, what kind of castle was this anyway?)

Eventually visitors would climb through Cinderella’s castle, located further inside the park, ride through the caves of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and take a teacup ride. On a large man-made  pond, they rode the Little Toot tugboat and visited Mount Vesuvius and Jungle Land.

With high-tech rivals such as Kings Dominion and Hershey Park, the crowds dwindled and in 1988 the park was sold to a developer.  Much of the parking lot and some of the park were turned into what is now known as The Enchanted Forest Shopping Center.  The castle and dragon are still there but you can’t go inside, it’s just part of the entrance to the shopping center now.

In 1994, the park reopened for just one season with no rides but you could still see some of your favorite mother goose rhymes.  I think it was more fun for the reminiscing adults than it was for the kids.

We didn’t know at the time that this would be the last time the park would ever open but we did manage to visit during that 1994 season.  These are my kids posing with the famous egg.

This is my older brother visiting Humpty Dumpty in 1958.  

I probably visited sometime around 1965…couldn’t find any of those pictures.  🙁

The Ugly Duckling and Swan Ride. No roller coasters here!

I remember this as being one of my favorite ‘rides’.  It really is just a slide built into The Old Lady who Lived in a Shoe’s, house. Here it is in 1958.

There is a semi-happy ending with the park.  While much of the park was left to decay, many of the main features were moved a few miles down the road to a local farm known for hay rides, a petting zoo and farm produce…Clarks Elioak Farm.  You can read more about their Enchanted Forest area here.

This is what the little old lady’s shoe looks like today in it’s new home and with a new paint job.

This was the home of the crooked old man who walked a crooked mile back in 1958.  I was reading where the angles of the Crooked House were so odd that one carpenter decided that the structure wouldn’t stand and walked off the job.  You can find a little more of the personal history of the park here.

Here is the crooked house today with his new rainbow paint job at the farm.

This is my Grandma and my brother at the Willie the Whale attraction.  You can tell it was the 50’s.  Grandma is in her best June Cleaver dress and heels.

After years of neglect, Willie was dug up and moved to Clark’s farm in 2005.

Willie looks totally happy in his new home.

As for what happened to the rest of the park…this is what I found when I ventured back in 2014.   While most of the attractions had been moved or had deteriorated, the castle still remained. Now it really seemed like an enchanted forest.

Upon closer inspection, the  castle was really just a shell,  some of the walls were falling down, stone veneer was falling off  and Rapunzel was not in any of the turrets.

A year later, hubby and I are having dinner across  the street from The Enchanted Forest.  At some point I mentioned that while most of the attractions had been moved from the area, the castle was still standing.  Totally cool…it was sort of like finding a gingerbread house in the woods.

After dinner we ventured over. As you can see, it was not a pretty site and definitely not a gingerbread house.  My enchanted castle was now an enchanted dump.

Even with a scavenger’s eye, I didn’t see much to salvage.  

I did pick up one lonely orange board for my tribute to The Enchanted Forest.

My scavenged board was only 4.75 inches tall.  Laid out on the computer using the font  ‘ Aharoni’, my lettering is exactly 4.75 inches tall, I wanted my lettering to be as tall  as possible with as little waste as possible.

Print and cut out your letters.  

Trace around the cut out letters.

Use a jigsaw or table top scroll saw to cut out the letters.

The paint started out pretty peely. To keep it from flaking off even more I painted on a coat of watered down wood glue.

I’m using a  large piece of reclaimed wood as my background.  I was lucky, where the wood was split was a good width for my  backer board.  Cut with a circular saw.

The orange was kind of bright,  but I toned it down with some vintage wax.  I also applied the wax to the freshly cut edges of the lettering.

Just paint on the wax and rub the excess off with a rag.

The lettering was attached with finish nails and a nail gun.  I bought this PORTER CABLE Finish Nailer/Compressor Combo Kit for my husband for Christmas one year (I use it all the time).

I cut the remainder of the backer board into strips to use as a frame.

Since my lettering was kind of small, I wanted to bulk up my sign.

Of course those newly cut edges of my frame didn’t quite match the rest of the aged wood.  A little taupe paint, vintage wax and water comes pretty close to a color match.

I thought I was all finished and I look at the thing…I wish there was a little more contrast between the lettering and the background.

Since I couldn’t change the color of the lettering, that would sort of ruin my Enchanted Forest history, I decided to whitewash the background. I really wish I had made that decision before nailing on all the lettering.

My Enchanted Forest sign copies the style of my Fixer Upper copy cat  Live Baits sign from March of last year.

This is how Joanna Gaines of Fixer Upper used the sign in her decorating….just to give you a little inspiration.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Before I leave you,  I have one more blast from the past.  Remember the low tech duckling / swan ride?  They also made the trip to the farm.  For some reason they are sitting in the woods with a dinosaur.  Pretty sure the dinosaur was not from the original park.

Shared at Metamorphosis Monday,

DIY Salvaged Junk, Farmhouse Friday,