Children's Fairyland
| Location | 699 Bellevue Ave., Lake Merritt, Oakland, California 94610 |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 37°48′32″N 122°15′36″W / 37.8090°N 122.2599°WCoordinates: 37°48′32″N 122°15′36″W / 37.8090°N 122.2599°W |
| Theme | Fairy tales |
| Owner | city of Oakland Park and Recreation Department |
| Operated by | Oakland Children's Fairyland, Inc. |
| Opened | September 2, 1950 |
| Area | 10 acres (4.0 ha) |
Children's Fairyland, U.S.A. is an amusement park, located in Oakland, California, on the shores of Lake Merritt. It was the first "themed" amusement park in the United States and the first amusement park created specifically for families with young children. Fairyland includes 10 acres (4.0 ha) of play sets, small rides, and animals. The park is also home to the Open Storybook Puppet Theater, the oldest continuously operating puppet theater in the United States.
Fairyland was built in 1950 by the Oakland Lake Merritt Breakfast Club, a local service club. The park was immediately recognized nationally for its unique value, and during the City Beautiful movement of the 1950s it inspired numerous towns to create their own parks. Walt Disney toured many amusement parks in 1950, including Children’s Fairyland, seeking ideas for what turned out to be Disneyland. He hired the first director of Fairyland, Dorothy Manes, to work at Disneyland as youth director, in which position she continued from the park's opening until 1972.
Numerous artists have contributed exhibits, murals, puppetry, and sculptures to the park. Some of the better-known artists are Ruth Asawa and Frank Oz, who was an apprentice puppeteer in the park as a teenager.
On a 1947 trip to the Detroit children's zoo in Belle Isle Park, Oakland nurseryman Arthur Navlet saw a collection of small nursery-rhyme themed buildings, and wanted to create something similar in Oakland's Lake Merritt Park. His hope was to create much larger sets that children could climb in and interact with. After getting the backing of the Lake Merritt Breakfast Club, a civic organization devoted to improving the park, he took his ideas to William Penn Mott, Jr., then director of Oakland's parks department. Mott and the Breakfast Club were able to raise $50,000 from Oakland citizens. Contributing sponsors included Earl Warren, Clifford E. Rishell, Joseph R. Knowland and Thomas E. Caldecott.
...
Wikipedia