Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Storyland, New Hampshire 1957

I found some great Kodachrome slides a few months ago, dated 1957 but with no information about this park other than "New Hampshire". But it didn't take much time to figure out that they are from a park called Storyland! Storyland is still around, although it has grown considerably, and has many more of your typical amusement park rides. In these 50+ year-old pictures, it appears to have consisted mostly of charming tableaus portraying scenes from beloved fables and fairy tales.

This cute kid is standing in front of a scene showing Jack and Jill as they tumble down the hill. There's the well, and the pail of water. Jack is holding his head because he broke it (head injuries are always good for a laugh).


I couldn't figure out if this simple fairy tale castle was supposed to be a scene from a specific story, or just a generic castle. Any ideas?


There's Humpty Dumpty, and boy does he look strange. Why isn't he smooth and egg-like? Maybe this is supposed to show that he couldn't be put back together very well. In any case, he's kind of creepy.


Here's the shoe that the old lady lives in. Now that she uses Odor Eaters, life is much nicer. A house like this in the L.A. area might sell in the mid-$300,000 range.


I have a few more from this series that I will share next week!
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10 comments:

  1. Chiana_Chat3:35 AM

    Cute, and real cute kid. :)

    rotflmao - you may be right about the housing prices, yiy!

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  2. Matterhorn19596:50 AM

    Great images...I vote for more...show them all! I love these small parks from the 1950's as the parks and images are some of the most charming I have seen.

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  3. Andrew7:21 AM

    Great pictures of a fun little park!

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  4. Vintage Disneyland Tickets9:27 AM

    Wow, Humpty-Dumpty is downright freakish, but I kinda like him.

    I vote for more too, these are a slice of lone gone Americana...

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  5. Katella Gate12:04 PM

    These pictures are too much fun. Didn't Santa's Village also have the Old Woman's Shoe-house?

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  6. Anonymous12:20 PM

    When I was a kid trapped in a fairly boring Midwestern childhood, we sometimes went to a similar park, called Fairyland Forest. It was our Disneyland! I barely remembered it for years, but then one colorful afternoon it all come back to me (never mind what I was smoking to induce such a wave of nostalgia). Here is a link to pictures:

    http://www.theimaginaryworld.com/clp.html

    That Haunted House terrified me at the time!

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  7. Major Pepperidge1:59 PM

    Obviously I love these smaller amusement parks too! Katella Gate, yes there was a similar shoe at Santa's Village - and many other fairy tale themed parks. And anonymous, I have seen those pictures on Dan Goodsell's web site, they are really great.

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  8. Nancy3:59 AM

    these are so nice, simple pleasures are the best....

    ours is called Storybook Forest, not far from downtown Pittsburgh. havent been there for many years but i do recall on my first visit as a child saving the cookie (a Vanilla Wafer) that came in a little bag for YEARS...

    sadly, my mom wasnt a picture taker

    i should go out there again sometime and see what its like now

    thanks for the memories! :-)

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  9. Anonymous3:51 PM

    Not sure where these pictures are taken, but not story land in glen new Hampshire. These don't match any other historical pictures from this park.

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  10. Shannon4:29 PM

    Hey, sorry, hate to tell you this but I grew up in NH (granted, not in the 50s by any means) and these pictures aren't from Story Land. I have a book (from the "Images pf America" series) that shows Story Land through the years and those are not Story Land NH's Cinderella's Castle, Jack and Jill's Hill, Humpty-Dumpty, or Shoe from the 50s or today. And for the person who posted the comment about Santa's Village, sorry, but it did/does not have an old woman's shoe-house. Now, I'm not sure of what other park it could be in NH, since the only other amusement parks (still open) are Santa's Village and some un-themed water parks. I did, however, visit the wikipedia page of defunct amusement parks (but I know wikipedia isn't the most trust-worthy site) and I didn't find anything in NH that seems to match these pictures. If you want to see Story Land in the early days, I highly recommend the book by Jim Miller. It has a lot of information about the park and even Heritage New Hampshire (which unfortunately is closed now).

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