Judy Garland Museum, Grand Rapids, Minn.
Take a three-hour drive north from Minneapolis-St. Paul, and you’ll find Grand Rapids, Minn., birthplace of Judy Garland. Surrounded by lakes and pine forests, the small, quiet town is home to both the Judy Garland Birthplace Historic House and the Judy Garland Children’s Museum.
Every June, fans from around the world flock to Grand Rapids for the annual Judy Garland Festival. Last year’s guests of honor were Garland’s frequent co-star, Mickey Rooney, and six Munchkins.
While in Grand Rapids, you can tour the house Garland (or Frances Gumm, as she was known back then) lived in until she was about four years old. The home is surrounded by a poppy field and a yellow-brick-road walkway, and the inside has been restored to look as it did when the Gumm family lived there in the early 1920s.
Half of the Judy Garland Children’s Museum in downtown Grand Rapids is filled with Garland memorabilia ranging from a pair of shoes she wore in Meet Me In St. Louis to her actual Tony Award. Oz artifacts at the museum include the “horse-of-a-different-color”-drawn carriage that carried Dorothy and her friends through the Emerald City, a silver sword used by one of the wicked witch’s guards, a green coat worn by an Emerald City resident, and an early design of Dorothy’s now-familiar blue dress.
The museum’s other half is dedicated to hands-on exhibits for the younger crowd. Children can paint, put on puppet shows, play musical instruments, and more.
Dorothy’s House, Liberal, Kan.
In 1981, residents of this southwest Kansas town transformed a small farmhouse into “Dorothy’s House” – a replica of the home carried to Oz by the infamous twister. Shortly afterward, the governor of Kansas recognized the house as “the official home of Dorothy Gale”.
Liberal has since become the home of the annual “Oztoberfest” celebration, and it was the site of the largest Munchkin reunion ever when 13 of the little Oz stars gathered in 1990. Visitors to Liberal can also tour the animated, 5,000-square-foot “Land of Oz” exhibit, led by guides dressed in, what else? Blue gingham dresses and sparkly red shoes.
National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.
A pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland were donated to the National Museum of American History in 1979, and have since become one of the museum’s most popular attractions. They’re on display with other film and television memorabilia on the museum’s third floor. Five pairs of slippers used in the movie are known to exist, but experts believe that the shoes on display in Washington are the primary pair of shoes made for and worn by Judy Garland.
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