In “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy Gale’s adventure across yellow brick roads, poppy fields and emerald cities is a beloved, technicolor dream. But where does that journey start?
In drab, dreary Kansas.
Both L. Frank Baum’s original children’s tale and MGM’s 1939 film portray Kansas as unwelcoming and dull. Baum describes the land, the house and even the characters as gray, and the film brings his words to life with a monotone sepia filter, washing out the Kansan prairie and its inhabitants. Dorothy sings of another, better land somewhere over the rainbow.
Yet Baum can’t be blamed for Kansas’ representation. After all, the book was written and published shortly after the Depression of 1893, and Baum’s biographer noted that the plight of the American farmer was one of Baum’s concerns; crop failures and failing prices contributed to financial instability among Americans.
With the later release of the 1939 film, America was caught in another economic downturn: the Great Depression. With the unemployment rate over 20%, families had difficulty making ends meet.
Economic battles were also fought against the backdrop of severe drought in the Midwest and Great Plains, which resulted in the Dust Bowl. Formerly cultivated land became useless for farming, intensifying the economic impacts of the Great Depression.
“By the time Oz came along, we’re deep into the 20th century,” John Fricke, historian and author with a focus on “The Wizard of Oz,” said. “With Oz, people knew that we had the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and again — gray, gray, gray. People came to realize that this was part of the Midwest.”
According to Fricke, Baum’s own experience living in the Midwest was fraught with drought and tornado disasters.
And so, through Baum’s recounting the rest of the world perceived Kansas, too.
Kansas is known for “The Wizard of Oz” worldwide. Its prominence in cinematic history is unequivocal, having been nominated for six Academy Awards, studied as the most influential movie of all time and telecast annually for 32 years from 1959.
“You only saw ‘The Wizard of Oz’ once a year. It was this huge event in homes all over America,” Fricke said. “It didn’t matter where you lived, or what your ethnicity was, or what your religion was, or what your age was: If you were between two or three and 60 or 70, you sat down and watched ‘The Wizard of Oz’ … That movie spoke to everybody.”
Bridgette Jobe, director of tourism for Kansas State, also remembers gathering around the TV with her family for the big event. Now, she reflects on the impact major media like Oz has had upon her state.
“When I speak with international media or international travelers, they have two concepts of Kansas, it’s either ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ or it’s the Wild West,” Jobe said. “People expect that black-and-white, dust-bowl picture that ‘Wizard of Oz’ had of Kansas. And again, when that movie was made, at the time that was probably very accurate. … [But] it’s not an accurate portrayal of what Kansas is today, and what we can do.”
Although Oz did not necessarily represent Kansas in a positive light, it did, however, give the state something that would prove to help with attracting tourists: a global brand.
Despite the brand’s outdated portrayal, Kansans are now embracing the connection as a source of pride. Jobe even has the Wicked Witch of the East’s feet sticking out from underneath her desk, as she ruminates on how to use the connection to the state’s advantage.
“We want to make sure that people understand that this is not the Kansas of today. We are different than what is portrayed in ‘The Wizard of Oz,’” Jobe said. “But it also is something that we can embrace and, like I said, not shy away from to help tell the story of Kansas and where we’ve come from, and who we are today.”
Today’s Kansas is far from dull and gray, according to Jobe, who said the state is vibrant with urban experiences like arts, culture and dining, along with more than 400 agritourism sites such as wineries and pumpkin patches.
She also highlighted rural communities as one of Kansas’s strengths, a belief shared by Sally Fuller, tourism and convention director for Liberal, Kansas.
“Our goal, obviously, is to bring people to our communities, and to see us in a good light,” Fuller said.
Liberal has a lot in common with Oz’s Kansas: it’s rural, they suffer from tornadoes, family and community are important values — which may explain why they have named themselves as Dorothy’s official hometown.
“Neither the books nor the movie ever mentioned the town. Just Kansas,” Fuller said. “So the feeling here was that Dorothy needed a town. She needed a home someplace where people could come to, to see and to relive the movie.”
And Liberal has fashioned that home for her: “Dorothy’s House” is one of Liberal’s main attractions, drawing as many as 30,000 visitors a year.
“It is a farmhouse that was very much from the same era had Dorothy been a real little girl,” Fuller said. “They replicated her bedroom from the movie, and the rest of the house is set up from just the way a family would have lived in that time period from the book.”
The attraction features not only the replicated house, but replica Dorothys, too. Local girls aged 13 and above who are lucky enough to get the job are tasked with dressing up as Dorothy and leading first-person immersive tours of “her” house.
But Liberal is not the only city that has embraced the magic of Oz.
Wamego, Kansas, is home to the Oz Museum, with more than 2,000 rotating artifacts, including a first-edition Baum. The museum was opened with a grant from the state, and they have recently received further state support — in the form of an Attraction Development Grant — to create an interactive crystal ball, similar to what is seen in the film.
Elsewhere in the state, Sedan, Kansas is home to the world’s longest Yellow Brick Road. The first section of the Yellow Brick Road was poured in 1988, and there are now over 11,500 bricks winding through downtown Sedan, giving the small town a whimsical feeling.
To demonstrate their pride, Liberal, Wamego and Sedan all host festivals in honor of “The Wizard of Oz.” Liberal’s Ozfest features costume contents and talent shows; Wamego’s OZtoberfest includes a yellow-brick road bike ride and baking contests; and Sedan’s Yellow Brick Road Festival hosts a witch’s cackle and Toto look-alike contest.
Along with museums and festivals, Kansas businesses thrive from the Oz connection. Toto’s TacOz and OZ Winery are two examples of local businesses creatively making the most of the tourist marketing available to them.
These attractions are opportunities for both locals and tourists who, according to Jobe, travel in from across the state, country and even world.
“People do travel to see this, and we welcome that,” Jobe said. “What’s really interesting is we see generations coming together … It’s the grandmother, it’s the mother and the grandchild, traveling together, and they all have that experience because it’s something that everyone can relate to — because they’ve seen the movie.”
“The Wizard of Oz” is a timeless tale that appeals to audiences of all ages, a fact that bodes well for Kansas’ tourism and economic growth.
The 2021 Kansas Travel Industry Report claimed that tourism had a total economic impact of $11.2 billion in Kansas in 2021, while also generating more than 84,000 jobs.
“It’s important,” Fuller said. “People stop here to go to Dorothy’s House … And while they’re here they buy gas and they eat, they often will spend the night in a motel.”
Fuller said that a lack of Oz tourism would certainly be felt in Liberal, but that she doesn’t see it going away anytime soon.
“‘Wizard of Oz’ is not going to go away; there’s too much love for it, there’s too much knowledge of it,” Jobe said. “And we don’t want it to go away. We want it to be there. Because it’s another way to get people thinking about Kansas. Now, is it contemporary? Is it today’s Kansas? No, but it can start a conversation about Kansas.”
Fricke agrees.
“Oz put Kansas on the map,” he said. “‘The Wizard of Oz’ has become part of Kansas.”
