This bizarre Wizard of Oz amusement park has been closed for 36 years — a photographer got inside and took these eerie photos

In 1970, 31 years after The Wizard of Oz was released, the Land of Oz amusement park opened in the resort town of Beech Mountain, North Carolina.

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Equipped with a real yellow brick road and costumes from the movie set, visitors were made to feel like they themselves were Dorothy — venturing from the tornado ridden house to the Emerald City.

But only 10 years after opening, the park officially closed due to the developers going bankrupt. Today, the park is open by appointment only, and during some of the town's high traffic seasons. Otherwise it's completely empty, just like photographer Johnny Joo, an explorer who documents abandoned spaces, likes.

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Joo photographed the Land of Oz on a misty, cloudy morning, capturing the eeriness of this once popular tourist attraction.

 

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In the beginning, the Land of Oz was a huge success for Beech Mountain, attracting 400,000 visitors its first summer.

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When Joo photographed it last fall, it was a completely different place. "The fog came rolling in, up in the mountains, giving everything such an eerie look to it," he told Business Insider.

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"Everything was so silent. It was actually like stepping into a fantasy world," he said.

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The park's original developer, Grover Robbins, spent $16 million acquiring land in the Beech Mountain area and developing the surrounding resort property.

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The tour through the park was linear, in order of the movie plot. Visitors would start in "Kansas" at Dorothy's Uncle Henry and Aunt Em's home.

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Characters from the film, including the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion would greet you along the trail.

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44,000 bricks were used to build the road.

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Today, Cindy Keller, the caretaker of the Land of Oz, complains that yellow bricks are routinely stolen from the grounds. "It’s probably the most sought-after relic we have," she told the The News and Observer.

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Source: News and Observer

While Keller blames some of the more recent media attention on the park for the vandalism, Joo respects all the abandoned places he photographs. "I love piecing together the history and past lives lived within these spaces. There are so many pieces of our history scattered all along the country that I feel need to be seen, with many of them currently being ignored," he said.

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