Arto Monaco’s Adirondack theme park legacy preserved, by grants

IMLS grants rescued more than 500 items from Monaco’s Land of Makebelieve after 2011 storm damage, but program faces budget cuts

By Peter Slocum

The magical, imaginative world of Arto Monaco—America’s post-World War II theme park creative genius—is preserved and protected, rescued from a devastating Adirondack near-hurricane, thanks to grants from the U.S. government’s Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

That program and its grant funding is being targeted and at risk of being swept away like the child-sized castles, riverboats and stagecoaches in Monaco’s Land of Makebelieve in Upper Jay that were ravaged by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.

Heritage preserved, funding threatened

Fortunately, the Monaco heritage is safe—and on public display—at the Adirondack History Museum in Elizabethtown. Not all pieces of the Land of Makebelieve could be rescued and restored, but thanks to the work of local community organizations and talented restoration and collections people, the museum was able to recover more than 500 items from the park. The museum opened a permanent exhibit displaying many of the objects that often drew 100,000 people annually to the theme park from 1954 to 1979.

The museum won grants in 2014 and 2016 from IMLS to rescue and preserve the collection. Those grants totaled $50,000.

Fortunately for the Elizabethtown museum, home of the Essex County Historical Society, it is not currently counting on such grants or projects. But many institutions are, for instance, the Underground Railroad Education Center in Albany. The center, which celebrates the area as a hub of abolitionist and Underground Railroad activity that helped escaping ex-slaves make their way North, is losing grants that were already promised for a teen studies program and creation of a new interpretive center. Many other Adirondack and North Country museums—including Historic Saranac Lake, Adirondack Experience in Blue Mountain Lake, Fort Ticonderoga and the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton—have won these grants in just the past few years.

In many cases, the IMLS grants provide funding and expertise that allow small, modestly funded institutions to undertake special projects, such as the restoration of Arto Monaco’s magical world. As of late May, a court challenge to the Trump Administration cuts resulted in some current grants being restored. But the entire IMLS program is still very much under threat.

The man behind the magic, from set designer to theme park pioneer

Monaco was born and raised in Essex County. He went to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to exercise his artistic talent before going to Hollywood in the 1930s, where he worked as a creative set designer for a number of major studios. During World War II, he turned his set design skills to military purposes, helping to prepare soldiers for street fighting in real-world German villages.

Returning to Upper Jay after the war, he launched a toy design business, which eventually evolved into the post-war tourism phenomenon known as the theme park. He designed and created the Land of Makebelieve, Old MacDonald’s Farm in Lake Placid and Frontier Town in North Hudson as well as Santa’s Workshop in Wilmington, which opened in 1949 as one of America’s first, and is still operating today.

Arto Monaco was the Pied Piper of Adirondack family tourism during the mid-20th century. His legacy is alive and accessible today, thanks to the partnership of Essex County, our local museum and the U.S. government’s special museum grant program. That partnership was spurred by a regional community idea and supported by federal expertise and tax dollars. Losing that sort of cooperation will have a dramatic effect on the ability of local communities to research, explore and celebrate their cultures and history. That will be our nation’s loss.