Yellow brick road
The yellow brick road is a central element in the 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by American author L. Frank Baum. The road also appears in the several sequel Oz books such as The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) and The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913).
"Yellow Brick Road" redirects here. For other uses, see Yellow Brick Road (disambiguation).Yellow brick road
Road paved with yellow bricks, leading to its destination--Emerald City
The road's most notable depiction is in the classic 1939 MGM musical film The Wizard of Oz, loosely based on Baum's first Oz book. In the novel's first edition, the road is mostly referred to as the "Road of Yellow Bricks". In the original story and in later films based on it such as The Wiz (1978), Dorothy Gale must find the road before embarking on her journey, as the tornado did not deposit her farmhouse directly in front of it as in the 1939 film.
Real yellow brick roads[edit]
There are various accounts of what inspired the yellow brick road. One account says it is a brick road in Peekskill, New York, where L. Frank Baum attended Peekskill Military Academy.[2] Other accounts say it was inspired by a road paved with yellow bricks near Holland, Michigan, where Baum spent summers.[3] Ithaca, New York, also makes a claim for being Frank Baum's inspiration. He opened a road tour of his musical, The Maid of Arran, in Ithaca, and he met his future wife Maud Gage Baum while she was attending Cornell University. At the time, yellow bricks paved local roads.[4] Portions of U.S. Route 54 within the state of Kansas have been designated "the yellow brick road".[5] Dallas, Texas makes a claim that Baum once stayed at a downtown hotel during his newspaper career (located near what is now the Triple Underpass) at a time when the streets were paved with wooden blocks of Bois D'Arc also known as Osage Orange. Supposedly, after a rainstorm the sun came out and he saw a bright yellow brick road from the window of his room.
Two direct, published references to the origin of the yellow brick road came from Baum's own descendants: his son Frank Joslyn Baum in To Please A Child and the other by Roger S. Baum, the great-grandson of L. Frank Baum who stated, "Most people don't realize that the Wizard of Oz was written in Chicago, and the Yellow Brick Road was named after winding cobblestone roads in Holland, Michigan, where great-grandfather spent vacations with his family."
The Vision Oz Fund was established in November 2009 to raise funds that will be used to help increase the awareness, enhancement, and further development of Oz-related attractions and assets in Wamego, Kansas. The first fundraiser is under way and includes selling personalized engraved yellow bricks, which will become part of the permanent walkway (aka "The Yellow Brick Road") in downtown Wamego.[6]
In 2019, a commemorative yellow brick road was installed in Chicago's Humboldt Park at the site of L. Frank Baum's 1899 residence.[7]
None to remove but Baum grew up in Mattydale ny aka Roseland. He got all his ideas for his stories there. No yellow brick roads anywhere in his mind, only a plank road in which was the first in the USA