Park was built on a shoestring and a dream.Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard In the beginning, almost nobody believed Roger Tofte when he told them about the theme park he planned to build on a hillside just south of Salem. That's the story told in the book, "The Enchanted Forest In literature, an enchanted forest is a forest under, or containing, enchantments. Such forests are described in the oldest folklore from regions where forests are common, and occur throughout the centuries to modern works of fantasy. and Its Family," written by Tofte's wife, Mavis. The book tells the story in words and pictures of a humble Oregon theme park that came together through the determination of one man and the support of his family. Apparently Tofte had proposed other wacky ideas, including a bed that popped out of a car trunk, a board game that combined checkers checkers, game for two players, known in England as draughts. It is played on a square board, divided into 64 alternately colored—usually red and black or white and black—square spaces, identical with a chessboard. and football, a balsa wood Noun 1. balsa wood - strong lightweight wood of the balsa tree used especially for floats balsa Ochroma lagopus, balsa - forest tree of lowland Central America having a strong very light wood; used for making floats and rafts and in crafts train set and a plate-making business. "I thought he was not right (in the head)," Mavis joked in an interview on the day of the park's 35th anniversary. `I thought, `Here we go again.' ' But Tofte was determined. And though he was just a draftsman for the state with a family to support and almost no savings, he was able to raise money without going deeply into debt by repairing wristwatches for his co-workers at the highway department. At times, he wore more than a dozen watches on his arms at once to make sure all the time pieces were working. ``After I fixed a watch, I'd buy a sack of cement,'' Tofte said. ``I tried going to the bank, but I couldn't get a loan.'' Eventually, Tofte was able to get the $2,000 loan he needed to buy a 20-acre plot of undeveloped land alongside Interstate 5 for $4,000. He spent the next seven years building Little Red Riding Hood's house, Peter Pumpkin pumpkin, common name for the genus Cucurbita of the family Cucurbitaceae (gourd family), a group that includes the pumpkins and squashes—the names may be used interchangeably and without botanical distinction. C. Eater's pumpkin and other cement structures that would serve as the foundation of Enchanted Forest. Because there was no electricity or running water on site, Tofte mixed up all of the concrete by hand using a wheelbarrow, a shovel and water siphoned from a nearby spring. His only experience working with cement came from building a swimming pool, which he had installed in his backyard years earlier. But he had plenty of artistic experience to draw upon. During his younger years, Tofte was an aspiring illustrator who idolized i·dol·ize tr.v. i·dol·ized, i·dol·iz·ing, i·dol·iz·es 1. To regard with blind admiration or devotion. See Synonyms at revere1. 2. To worship as an idol. Norman Rockwell Noun 1. Norman Rockwell - United States illustrator whose works present a sentimental idealized view of everyday life (1894-1978) Rockwell . He even sought employment at the Saturday Evening Post, but eventually decided big city life was not for him. He moved to Salem, took a job washing hams at a meat processing plant and met his wife. Tofte's ambitions emerged long before that. The son of a Lutheran minister, he spent most of his childhood in Astoria, where he showed a propensity for designing roadside attractions A roadside attraction is a feature along the side of a road, that is frequently advertised with billboards to attract tourists. In general, these are places one might stop on the way to somewhere else, rather than being a final or primary destination in and of themselves. at an early age. After visiting Mount Rushmore with his family, he tried to replicate the monument on a dirt hillside. Later, after returning from a road trip to the Oregon Caves, he attempted to dig a cave in his yard so he could charge visitors for admission. When Tofte finally started building a real theme park in 1964, he mustered his limited resources and built as much as he could for as little as he could. He scrounged building materials Building materials used in the construction industry to create . These categories of materials and products are used by and construction project managers to specify the materials and methods used for . , used his Volkswagen as a makeshift pickup and enlisted the help of anyone who would pitch in. "You could tell by the stains on his clothes which area he had been working in," Mavis recalled. "If he had orange paint on him, you could tell he was working on the pumpkin." The people at the local planning department were, apparently, amused a·muse tr.v. a·mused, a·mus·ing, a·mus·es 1. To occupy in an agreeable, pleasing, or entertaining fashion. 2. by Tofte's building permit requests, which called for a castle, a witch's head, a dwarfs' mine, a crooked house
what to do with so many children? [Nurs. Rhyme: Opie, 434] See : Fertility old woman who lived in a shoe “had so many children she didn’t know what to do. . In the early days, Tofte did most of the work himself. The sight of a lone man building storybook sto·ry·book n. A book containing a collection of stories, usually for children. adj. Occurring in or resembling the style or content of a storybook: storybook characters; a storybook romance. characters and set pieces in the forest led to rumors. One of the stories being passed around town was that a man had crashed his plane in the woods, gone mad and started building strange structures in the forest. Tofte's co-workers were tickled. And even though some of them agreed to lend a helping hand, they had their own names for the theme park. "They'd ask me how `The Funny Farm' was,'' Tofte recalled. `` `How's Idiot Hill?' they'd say.'' Tofte may have looked the fool then, but by the time he opened the park at 2 p.m. Aug. 8, 1971, he was starting to look more and more like a visionary. Admission was 50 cents for kids and $1 for adults. By the second weekend, the park saw nearly 1,000 visitors pass through the gates in one day. SEE: Dream come true - The Enchanted Forest theme park a steady draw for generations / G1 |
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