So in mid-June I drove to Ithaca to visit my friend Nancy. This is the largest and oldest Wizard of Oz themed festival in the world.Īs a huge Baum and Oz fan, I had planned to attend the Oz-stravaganza this year but had to delay my trip by two weeks. The Oz-Stravaganza grew from a simple Baum birthday event in 1978 to a three-day festival hosted by Oz historian John Fricke, hosting since 1990. They are planning a big surprise for next year (2019), the 80th anniversary of the MGM movie The Wizard of Oz. The town hosts the annual Oz-stravanza the first weekend in June. Over a century later, as a tribute to Baum, another Yellow Brick Road winds through downtown Chittenango on Genessee Street. Later, he grew accustomed to seeing the yellowed hemlock plank road that carried salt barrels to Salina, possibly the inspiration for Oz’s Yellow Brick Road. He spent his first five years in Chittenango, his birthplace. The small town of Chittenango, New York is proud to embrace their hometown boy, L.
