The Enchanted Forest amusement park once brought hundreds of families to Howard County with its fairytale-themed attractions. Though the park is long gone, its legacy lives on—and Ellicott City petting farm Clark’s Elioak Farm will be celebrating its 70th anniversary with a weekend of fun on Aug. 9 and 10.
Clark’s Elioak Farm opened in 2002, long after the Enchanted Forest’s closure. But it’s home to several historic attractions from the amusement park, including its famous castle, which it acquired from park landowners Kimco Realty.
The farm’s owners started by acquiring the park’s pumpkin carriage statue, which had been refurbished to be sold at a charity auction. From there, more and more Enchanted Forest attractions made their way to the farm, including Mother Goose, the Old Woman’s Shoe and Willie the Whale.
“Everyone thought [Clark’s Elioak Farm] was a great place for these attractions to be, because we’re only five miles away from the original location, and they meant a lot to people,” says Martha Clark, who owns Clark’s Elioak Farm along with her daughter, Nora. “They liked the idea that these pieces were going somewhere that people could see them again.”
The Enchanted Forest was known for being the second-oldest “Storybook Land” in the country, only beaten by Disneyland, which opened a month before the Enchanted Forest’s August 1955 opening. The park even predates the founding of the nearby town of Columbia, which Clark’s Elioak Farm sits on the outskirts of, by over a decade.
Notably, The Enchanted Forest was an integrated attraction from the day it opened, a rarity during a time when segregation was common and a development that took other Maryland amusement parks years to implement.
After 40 years of operation across several generations of the same family, the Enchanted Forest closed its doors in 1995 and sat abandoned for another 10 years. A local community organization, the Enchanted Forest Preservation Society, was formed with the intent to preserve its attractions for future generations.
The Clark family has spent the past decade transporting and refurbishing these attractions, and has previously held anniversary events for the Enchanted Forest for its 50th anniversary in 2005 and its 60th in 2015. The 70th anniversary event will also highlight the latest restored statue from the Enchanted Forest, the steamboat “Little Toot,” which will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
These installations contribute to the farm’s mission of providing nature-based, low-tech fun for families, Clark says.
“You go to places now and everything’s just QR codes and electronics and pushing buttons,” she says. “We pride ourselves on being low-tech.”
The Enchanted Forest’s 70th Birthday Celebration will also include a panel with former Enchanted Forest employees, visitors from original attraction designers Adler Display and an exhibit of works from plein air painters who have spent the last several weeks painting scenes from the farm. Visitors can also take part in classic farm fun activities, from old favorites like feeding baby goats and hayrides to new additions like the recently-implemented gem mining station.
“[The Enchanted Forest] holds such a place in so many people’s childhood memories, and it makes us happy to know that we can make it available for people to see and create new childhood memories for the next generation,” Clark adds. “We’ve got people who come and sit in Willie the Whale’s mouth, and then they’ll pull up their own pictures of them sitting in Willie the Whale’s mouth from 50 years ago and show us. That’s a tremendous amount of fun for all of us.”
