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Let your light shine!
Creative ideas for creative minds.
Let your light shine!
Creative ideas for creative minds.
Summer didn’t even say goodbye!
Fall leads straight into: candy month, pie month, and cookie month
“The weather just went from 90 to 55 like it saw a state trooper.”
L. Frank Baum wrote the book in 1900 while the Great Plains were experiencing hard times, including repeated dust storms. However, when Dorothy lands in Oz, she longs to return home. If Dorothy lived in Kansas now, she could visit Oz anytime, no Ruby Red Slippers required.
Baum extended his Oz universe from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to his final book, Glinda of Oz.
Take the dog Toto Tour with this tour guide map
Related: The Sedan Yellow Brick Road is one of the state’s world record
A glass rainbow spans the Downing Children’s Garden entrance at Botanica, the Wichita Gardens. After the entry, a pair of yellow paths wander under more rainbow-colored arches. Dorothy’s friend Polychrome, the daughter of the Rainbow, would be thrilled.
O.J. Watson Park features another Yellow Brick Road.
Related: Explore the top 11 things to do in Wichita.
In Kansas City’s Legends Outlets, Dorothy Gale’s portrait hangs near Yard House and the Yellow Brick Road. The movie’s principal characters stand on the lawn as perfect photo opportunities at Kansas Originals Market near Wilson.
Ray’s Apple Market in Council Grove has a Tin Man in the parking lot. The Wicked Witch, a Winged Monkey, and the Tin Man are all members of Jim Dickerman’s Open Range Zoo on Highways 14 and 16.
Emerald is a ghost town on the Anderson-Franklin County line, but St. Patrick’s Church still holds services.
Adrian designed the costumes for the Wizard of Oz. Enjoy viewing some of his designs in Johnson County Community College’s Fashion Collection, Overland Park.
Related: Osawatomie is famous for John Brown’s abolitionist activities, but Oz is the city’s nickname.
The cheerful and determined Dorothy Gale survived many adventures in Kansas, Oz, and other places. Baum, the Royal Historian of Oz, described her experiences with her friends in numerous books. However, her life was a mystery before the tornado swooped down to carry her away. How did Baum find her?
Two theories are prominent.
Two years before Baum published his first Oz book, his niece, Dorothy Louise Gage, died in Bloomington, Ill. The little girl’s death devastated her aunt Maud, Baum’s wife. As a consolation, the author named the protagonist “Dorothy.”
Baum did not reveal Dorothy’s last name, Gale, until the Broadway musical Wizard of Oz in 1902. She uses the name in the third Oz book, Ozma of Oz
This marker shows the location of the former Irving townsite.
However, the 2013 book Storm Kings posited a second theory about Baum’s tornado scene. On May 30, 1879, two EF-5 tornadoes struck Irving, Kansas.
According to the book, Baum recalled an article about the Irving storm while writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
The book says a girl named Dorothy Gale died in the outbreak.
They found her face down in a mud puddle.
Signal Corps Pvt. J.P. Finley marked the John Gale home as No. 1 on his Irving tornado map. It’s four blocks west of the compass rose. (United States Army Signal Corps
Neither the Waterville Telegraph nor the Blue Rapids Times, Irving’s closest newspapers, mentions the John Gail family in their coverage.
A few months later, Army Signal Corps Pvt. J.P. Finley studied the 1879 tornado outbreak. He learned that the Gail family endured the storm, but no family members died.
Finley was a poor speller who misspelled the family’s name as Gale.
The family survived airborne journeys, including baby daughter Nellie. The tornado carried her nearly 500 feet before dumping her into a small ravine. Her sister Alta landed nearby. However, the family had no members named Dorothy.
One of the tornado’s Irving victims, Flora Keeney, died when the tornado dropped her head first in mud up to her shoulders. Her fate perhaps inspired the Wicked Witch of the East’s demise instead of Dorothy’s. Her husband John and his father Clinton also died in the storm.
Did Baum read Finley’s report and combine his niece with Dorothy, the tornadic traveler? Perhaps so.
In the fifth Oz book, The Road to Oz, the Shaggy Man asks Dorothy for directions to nearby Butterfield. Because Princess Ozma wants Dorothy to attend her birthday party, Ozma entangles the roads. Eventually, Dorothy, the Shaggy Man, and Button Bright arrive in Oz. But where is Butterfield?
No Kansas town bears the Butterfield name. However, the Butterfield Overland Despatch stagecoach route ran from Atchison to Denver. Half an hour southwest of Wamego, Manhattan has a Butterfield neighborhood, but the Butterfield Trail Museum is in Russell Springs, 4 hours west of Wamego.
Decoding the Butterfield location would take more than the Scarecrow’s brainpower.
Maybe Baum confused the hometown’s name because Buttermilk, Kansas, is a ghost town in Comanche County.
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