Land of Oz Theme Park

Perched at 5,506 feet on Beech Mountain, the Land of Oz is a defunct theme park based on L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz, and one of the stranger things you can visit in the Appalachians. Carolina Caribbean Corporation built it in 1970 as the anchor attraction for the new Beech Mountain resort community. At its peak it offered a walkthrough journey along a yellow brick road, with costumed characters and theatrical sets representing the major scenes from the book and film.

Today it opens only a handful of times a year — most notably the annual Autumn at Oz festival in October, when actors reprise the characters and visitors are encouraged to come in costume. The experience is equal parts nostalgic, eerie, and genuinely charming. The mountaintop location adds to the atmosphere: on a clear October day, with the trees turning, the whole thing feels like a dream.

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The park opened in 1970, drawing 350,000 visitors in its first season, but closed in 1980 after a devastating fire. For decades, it sat abandoned on the mountaintop, attracting urban explorers and Oz devotees who would hike up to wander among the ruins. The park now opens once a year for an 'Autumn at Oz' event, and the sense that you are visiting something half-reclaimed by the forest is part of the appeal.