ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Liberal has been known as the home of Dorothy Gale of “The Wizard of Oz” fame for many years now, and late last week, a new attraction was officially opened to help emphasize that.
Friday, the City of Liberal, Convention and Tourism Bureau and other entities hosted a grand opening for the new Ruby Red Slipper Slide at the Convention and Tourism Bureau building at 1 Yellow Brick Road.
“I'm very proud of my hometown for getting this project done, this is the second big project we've had kick off in as many weeks,” City Manager Scarlette Diseker said at the opening ceremony. “This is a great attraction for our community – it's not only for the residents who live here, but also for people who are passing through. We want people to stop by, take a look and have some fun with this new slide. I have to thank Sally [Fuller] and her staff and all the great work they do for Liberal, they are amazing and don't get near the amount of recognition they deserve. We're not going to stop, this is just the beginning for us, and I can't wait to see what happens next for Liberal.”
The slide replicates Dorothy Gale’s famous ruby red slippers and, standing nearly 10 feet tall, the slide will support child and adult users. The project had been in the works for multiple years before being approved in late 2024.
“Joe Denoyer and I have actually been talking about doing a project like this Ruby Red Slipper Slide for about 10 or 15 years now, and it was more of just a fun concept and something we thought would just be cool to have,” Liberal Tourism and Convention Director Sally Fuller said after the project was announced in December. “Then, Janeth told me about a recent trip to Las Vegas she'd taken, and there's a big red shoe attraction there, and she said something along the lines of us having something like that in Liberal, so it all kind of collided. I then contacted a couple companies that do playground equipment and had a couple designs worked up – one was more of a children's slide, but the other one is one that can be used by children and adults, and I wanted it to be something for everyone. Keeley Moree is the one who actually put the grant together, and we ended up getting approved, so we're really excited.”
Fuller said she and her staff are excited to have the slide officially completed after receiving grant money for the project back in December.
“It's great having the slide officially up and running now, it seems like it's taken forever,” Fuller said with a laugh. “It's absolutely beautiful, it looks exactly like how we hoped it would and we're so excited it's officially here and people can slide on it 24/7.”
The slide pieces officially arrived July 7, and then members of the Streets Department and Parks Department put it together July 9. Fuller admitted the project’s arrival had some unexpected twists.
“In my mind, I thought it would come on a flatbed truck all put together and it would just be picked up and installed. Instead, it came in roughly 10 different pieces, all of which were bubble-wrapped, and it didn't look like anything we expected when it officially got into town,” Fuller said. “However, our Streets Department and Parks Department are absolutely amazing, they did such a great job putting it together, and they were able to do it so quickly. The company estimated it would take about four days to put it all together, but our City of Liberal guys got it put together in six hours. We were all amazed and relieved. It's completely custom-made, and there's no other slide like it in the world, which I think is wonderful.”
Fuller then went into more detail about the actual construction of the slide.
“The pieces all came in a rail car and then hauled here and then put together. The pieces were made in Baltimore by the Adventure Solutions company, and they put it in a rail car and sent it to Denver, and then the trucking company put the axles and wheels under that car and then hauled it here,” Fuller said. “That was the first thing because again, it didn't dawn on us that everything would be in pieces. When it got here, the doors to the rail car were opened and then all the pieces were taken out one at a time before being officially put together by our city crews. And there weren't any instructions included because again, it's a completely custom piece, so we didn't have any manual of how everything was supposed to go together, but our city crews are so amazing and were able to figure it out and make it amazing. I was a little worried about it because we'd already had the grand opening event planned out and all of that, but I didn't know how long it would take for the slide to actually be put together, so it was a sigh of relief when everything was finished.”
And now that the slide is completed, Fuller said she hopes to see it frequently used.
“We would love to see people of all ages come by and take a slide down it and take selfies and videos and do all of that stuff. There's also a Facebook page dedicated to the slide as well as an Instagram page where people can upload their photos and videos. We want people to come and slide down this slide and spread the word to everyone they know,” Fuller said. “I think it's a huge symbol of our claim to fame, which is being the home of Dorothy Gale from the 'The Wizard of Oz' stories. The reason the slide works so well for us is because we claim Dorothy, so it's very much a symbol of what we've always said. We've got the Dorothy statues around town, Dorothy's House and the Land of Oz, and now we have one of Dorothy's shoes. And people have been going down the slide since that first night, the parking lot was full of people waiting to go down it.”
Seeing that high response already is great, Fuller said.
“I actually had a feeling that would happen. I knew this was something that would catch people's attention and make them want to either slow down and get a better look or just completely stop,” Fuller said. “It's so magical to get to see it because it's an absolutely beautiful slide, and it's good for children and adults to slide down. I think many people passing through town on U.S. Hwy 54, even if they're just passing through, they'll want to either slow down or stop and take photos and/or take a slide. I want to thank everyone who came out to the grand opening Friday, it was wonderful to see such a big crowd, and the dancers were great to watch because they're all so talented. We hope people who stop at the slide will then make a stop at Dorothy's House and the Coronado Museum and see everything on that campus. The goal is to help draw more people to Liberal.”
