It wasn't always clear yesterday whether Cinderella's pumpkin coach was a bigger hit with the little kids poking their heads through its windows, or with their parents - flush with their own childhood memories of Howard County's vanished Enchanted Forest amusement park.
The orange coach, now installed at Clark's Elioak Farm in Ellicott City, along with Mother Goose and three teams of gigantic white mice, triggered a flood of memories among many grown-up "children" who visited yesterday as the park's artifacts began their new life at the farm.
"I remember going with my beloved grandfather. It was a place of many happy memories," said Leanne Price, 39, of Abingdon as her daughter Gabrielle, 5, clambered through the fairy tale coach.
Seeing some of the storybook figures from the Enchanted Forest rescued, restored and accessible again "is like going back in time for us," Price said. "To be able to show my kids is really wonderful."
For Angelina Stancil, 38, of Randallstown, the coach evoked vivid memories of visits to the park with her mother, Dorothy Washington of Baltimore.
"I remember when you turned into the parking lot you saw the King," she said. "You would see him over the entrance gate, and you knew you were there."
She stood with her arm around her son Raphael, 5, who was seeing the pumpkin coach and its mice for the first time.
"He loves them," she said. "I think he would have enjoyed the park better, but we'll take what we can get."
More than 1,300 people visited Clark's Elioak Farm on Saturday, and a similar crowd was on hand yesterday, said Martha Clark. Her family, with roots in the county from 1797, has raised crops, cattle and other animals on the Elioak property since 1946. The petting farm there opened three years ago.
Clark had her own fond memories of trips to the Enchanted Forest. The 55-acre park on U.S. 40 opened in 1955 and operated until 1988. It delighted a generation of Maryland families with rides and strolls through a sort of three-dimensional storybook.
Instead of the flash, dazzle and terrifying rides at today's amusement parks, the park offered giant characters such as Mother Goose, Humpty Dumpty and Old King Cole, and landmarks such as the Old Lady's Shoe House, the Enchanted Castle and the Crooked House.
New owners closed the place in 1988 and opened a shopping center next door. There was a brief revival in 1994, but it closed again. And the decade since has taken its toll on the park in vandalism and weathering.
