Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Fun Architecture At A Story Book Land 1950s

A craze of the 1950s was the creation of Storybook Lands across the United States. Many were privately owned, but an equal or greater number were sponsored by Lion's Clubs, Elks, or other community service organization. The parks had fun architecture to make the stories found in Mother Goose come alive. Other architecture included crazy castles, birthday cakes, teapots and other themed buildings. The two images for today's post come from an unknown park and are circa 1950s. First up is a clown castle. I like the eyebrows and the hair giving the castle a distinct cartoon feel. The turrets behind the main castle are crazy!

Next up is The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe, although in this case the shoe looks more like a cowboy boot. The crowd of kids standing at the top of the boot looks like there is a preacher.

2 comments:

DBenson said...

That castle and probably the shoe are from Storyland, which used to stand near the San Francisco Zoo. I remember it vaguely; my brother had an old-fashioned decal of the castle.

http://oceanbeachbulletin.com/2011/05/03/before-now-once-upon-a-time-storyland-delighted-childre-at-san-francisco-zoo/

Major Pepperidge said...

That clown castle is unlike anything else I've seen; and I agree, I love the cowboy boot theme for the Old Woman's shoe!