No date on this promotional plate, but Highlands lost its bragging rights in 1981 with the incorporation of Beech Mountain (5,506 feet).
Exploring the History, Literature, and Culture of the Tar Heel State
No date on this promotional plate, but Highlands lost its bragging rights in 1981 with the incorporation of Beech Mountain (5,506 feet).
On this day in 1970: The Land of Oz, a theme park based on “The Wizard of Oz,” opens atop Beech Mountain.
The park, imaginatively conceived by Charlotte artist Jack Pentes, proves too low-tech, too small and too remote — and the weather is often dreary. Attendance is 250,000 the first year but only 60,000 in 1980, when the park closes.
A residential development will eventually supplant the abandoned Oz. Artifacts such as the Yellow Brick Road and mechanical pig wind up in Boone’s Appalachian Cultural Museum — until the museum, too, closes in 2006.
Pictured: Pinback buttons from Land of Oz.