Nowadays the whole community of West Milford often complains about the lack of entertainment or places to go in West Milford, but back then West Milford was quite the exciting area with the movie theater, a bowling alley, and amusement parks etc. Fairy Tale Forest off of Route 23 at 140 Oak Ridge Road was one of the amusement parks located in West Milford and was very popular first opening in 1957. Don’t go looking for rides though because all you will find is a ShoeBox Storage and broken down vandalized fairy tale statues.
Upon opening in 1957, Fairy Tale Forest brought fairy tales to life for the kids of all ages with the hand-crafted scenes from children’s favorite stories like Robin Hood to Mother Goose. Fairy Tale Forest all began with a German immigrant’s dream to bring fairy tales to children with his outstanding craftsmanship skills. Paul Woehle, Sr. was the original creator of Fairy Tale Forest but sadly died in 1994 leaving the business to be continued by his granddaughter: Christine VanderPloeg. Woelhe had carved the fairy tale figures himself out of wood or molded out of cement as well as paint background scenery. The whole idea of the park was to create a comfortable fun laid back atmosphere for children and parents. The park was different from anything else today, most parks were overly commercialized but Fairy Tale Forest encouraged people to visit and enjoy some quiet time with their families. The granddaughter had a lot of work to do for the 40th anniversary reopening in 1997. Suburban Trends ran an article in 1997 about the reopening of Fairy tale Forest advertising the very special event. Unfortunately, Fairy Tale Forest closed down again 2003 never to open again. Then, as now, storms, vandalism, and deterioration have damaged the whole park.
These days, Fairy Tale Forest’s iconic entrance building featuring the giant shoe “ There was an Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe” fame still stands. Recently, a restaurant was opened called “ Hot Diggity’s At Fairy Tale, which sadly was closed after two years. Rapunzel’s tower, another popular display also stands and is visible from the roadway. As of right now, where Fairy Tale Forest’s back attraction area used to be the owners opened a self-storage facility called the “ShoeBox Storage.” Many students in the high school remember visiting this beloved theme park when they were little. Annie Ney, Junior here at the high school recalled, “ I remember going there all the time with my family and friends, i went there habitually and i was so upset when it closed. The owners still try and keep the maintenance of the entrance that is seen from the highway because if you pass by you can once in awhile see working crews fixing the iconic shoe. A couple years ago,my mother rented a storage unit at ShoeBox Storage and upon talking to one of the owners learned some information about the closing of Fairy Tale Forest for good. The owner tried to explain it was to hard to keep fairy Tale Forest running because of insurance costs for the park. There was not enough revenue in addition to insurance costs to keep the place running. To increase profit, owners decided to look into adding some small water rides but due to insurance reasons again, the idea could not be followed through with. You may think well why not increase advertisement of the kid’s friendly theme park? To do that would go behind what differed them from the other overly- commercialized theme parks.
Vandalism and destruction now pervades the once booming theme park, leaving the hand-crafted statues and displays to rot and decay unfortunately. The owners are very kind people but strongly persuade people to refrain from walking through. The owners are very open to curious minds and don’t mind giving tours but want to stop vandalism on what is left of the park. Fairy Tale Forest can be added to the long list of entertainment that was once in West Milford but no longer stands.
