Now 87, Mr Tofte gets around his park on a moped. He may not be able to do all the work he was capable of a few years ago, but he still pitches in

But 45 years later, it's still going strong and is run by Mr Tofte's two daughters Sue and Mary

He was the creative, his wife Mavis, originally a bit skeptical about the venture, took care of the business

When Roger Tofte bought 20 acres of Oregon hillside in 1964, it was dubbed 'Idiot Hill' by some who were less than enthusiastic about his vision for a fairy tale themed theme park - now it attracts 200,000 visitors a year


Roger Tofte opened Enchanted Forest to the public in 1971 with the help of his family and more than 45 years later, the park is now a staple of the Northwest attracting 200,000 visitors a year. Today the 87-year-old artist is often seen whizzing around in a moped carrying cement across the park to fix damaged attractions

Once upon a time, in a land not far away, there was a desperate dad who was perplexed by how few local family attractions he could take his family to.

So he bought 20 acres of rolling hillside just south of Salem, Oregon, and over the next seven years built a peculiar theme park straight from a storybook.

By 1971, Roger Tofte opened the Enchanted Forest to the public with the help of his family and more than 45 years later, the park is now a staple of the Northwest.

Today the 87-year-old is often seen whizzing around in a moped carrying cement across the park to fix damaged attractions.

‘I just keep going for as long as I can,’ said the father-of-four who has no plans of retiring.

‘I’m not doing stuff that I used to some years ago but I’m still able to climb ladders and let the younger guys do the heavy lifting.’

And he always has work to do as Mr Tofte’s DIY artistry and craftsmanship has been responsible for building a vast majority of the park.

There are six rides at the park with the most popular being the Ice Mountain bobsled roller coaster, the Big Timber log ride which is the largest of its kind in the Northwest according to Mr Tofte and the medieval-themed Challenge of Mondor that caught the eye of a familiar corporation.

‘We had four engineers from Disney come out when we put on our Mondor ride because it was one of the only ones in the States at that time because it just follows a wire in the floor,’ Mr Tofte said.

‘They came up from Disneyland one time to look around and I took them around the park and they were pretty impressed with the atmosphere of the whole place.’

But the Enchanted Forest main attraction still remain the classic depictions of fairy tales and nursery rhymes – from Humpty Dumpty, the Three Bears, the Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pumpkin Eater and more – vying closer to their uncanny origin stories.

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‹ Slide me › Mr Tofte has had a hand in constructing every attraction at the fairy tale themed park that features Storybook Lane, a Western town called Tofteville and an old English village that was opened in 1988. A Celtic band greets visitors who stumble into the town highlighting music arranged by Mr Tofte's eldest daughter Sue

‹ Slide me › The Enchanted Forest main attraction still remain the classic depictions of fairy tales and nursery rhymes that Mr Tofte first created in the early 1970s – from Humpty Dumpty, the Three Bears, the Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pumpkin Eater and more – vying closer to their uncanny origin stories. An eerie witch lies in Storybook Lane for children to slide out of her hair (now, right and under construction, left)

‹ Slide me › Mr Tofte DIY nature means everything gets recycled at the park. An old display from the park's early days gets repurposed for the Little Bo Peep nursery rhyme

In 2014, two burly men were fooling around on Humpty Dumpty’s wall and accidentally knocked it over. A scene right from the nursery rhyme, the egg fell to the ground shattering into pieces.

Mr Tofte said: ‘I worked 7 days a week for a whole month and a half and we finally finished it and got it up and I think it came out better than the original.’

In the 1960s, while on a trip with his family to see relatives in Minnesota, Mr Tofte was perplexed by the lack of family fun activities in the area.

Working four jobs – as a draftsmen and artist for the highway, commercial artist for local printers and as a watch repairmen – he bought the scenic hillside with bustling canopy just south of Oregon’s capital for $4000.

Only able to work on his newfound hobby on weeknights and the weekend, Mr Tofte first built the Fairy Land – with a looming castle as an entrance before visitors see classic depictions of fairy tale characters from Storybook Lane and an eerie witch complete with a dungeon – showing both the pleasant and spooky nature of children stories.

The 87-year-old builder first completed Storybook Lane when he opened the park showcasing authentic versions of popular nursery rhymes - Humpty Dumpty, the Three Bears, the Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pumpkin Eater are among the childhood favorites. The Jack and Jill figurines run with their pail of water before tumbling down

In 2014, two burly men were fooling around on Humpty Dumpty’s wall and accidentally knocked it over. A scene right from the nursery rhyme, the egg fell to the ground shattering into pieces - a small addition to Humpty's wall commemorates the breakage and Mr Tofte's repair work

Speaking about putting Humpty together again, Mr Tofte said: ‘I worked seven days a week for a whole month and a half and we finally finished it and got it up and I think it came out better than the original’

The idea to create the family attraction came after Mr Tofte saw how bored his children were while on a road trip to visit family in Minnesota in the 1960s. More than 45 years later, he now has a park that spans for several acres and as shown in the map offers an array of things for visitors to do

Working four jobs – as a draftsmen and artist for the highway, commercial artist for local printers and as a watch repairmen – Mr Tofte bought the scenic hillside with bustling canopy just south of Oregon’s capital for $4,000. In the next few years after the park opened he would go on to quit all of his other jobs and focus entirely on the Enchanted Forest

Mr Tofte buzzes through his old English town. While he helps out wherever he is needed in the park, the family business is run by his daughters Sue and Mary

A project dubbed 'Idiot Hill': Not everyone appreciated Roger Tofte's vision in the early days of the Enchanted Forest

People thought he was crazy, with coworkers often calling Mr Tofte’s passion project 'Idiot Hill'.

Mr Tofte’s eldest daughter, Sue Vaslev, recalled a time when she was picking beans in a field and heard people speaking poorly of her father nearby.

She said: ‘I remember in the row next to me hearing these people talk about this crazy man who crashed his airplane and started putting witches heads up here and of course they are talking about my dad.

‘I went over to that row and I went "that is my dad you are talking about he is not like that".'

People thought he was crazy for doing the cement work on the hill, with coworkers often calling Mr Tofte’s passion project 'Idiot Hill'. But the entrepreneur was set on opening the Enchanted Forest working most weekends to complete it seen here in the early days of construction in the 1960s

Even his own wife Mavis was initially skeptical of her husband’s work but eventually came around taking on the crucial work of managing the numbers to see what they could accomplish.

Prior to the grand opening, Mr Tofte needed a $2000 loan but his initial bank rejected the struggling artist prompting him to seek help from another bank to get the park running.

Sue said: ‘Before the park opened up, we didn’t have any money and everything was really tight.

‘We were eating chicken noodle soup. We would constantly joke "oh our ship is coming someday, we can see it out on the dock".'

Charging 50 cents, the Enchanted Forest opened its doors on Sunday August 8, 1971.

‘So we bought some trinkets and I just put a butcher paper up on the fence that said open,’ said Mr Tofte. ‘That day we had 75 people going through and during that weekend on the front page of the local paper they showed the castle so that next week we had about 1500.’

Mr Tofte's oldest daughter Sue said of skeptics she heard speak of her father: ‘I remember in the row next to me hearing these people talk about this crazy man who crashed his airplane and started putting witches heads up here and of course they are talking about my dad.' Critics often made up stories about the work Mr Tofte was doing in the hills back in the 1960s

Even Mrs Tofte was initially skeptical of her husband’s work and drawings but eventually came around taking on the crucial work of managing the numbers to see what they could accomplish. An early drawing of Mr Tofte theme park aspirations

Mr Tofte was dedicated to get his park off the ground, constantly illustrating different ideas for what should be in the park. These drawings of the entrance castle and the old English village show how detail oriented the builder was in his dream

Mr Tofte struggled with the funds to build the park which is why he opted to do most of the cement work for it as seen when he was building the witch's head before the park opened in the 1960s. Sue said: ‘Before the park opened up, we didn’t have any money and everything was really tight. We were eating chicken noodle soup. We would constantly joke: "oh our ship is coming someday, we can see it out on the dock".' (Here Mr Tofte is pictured in 1971 building the first incarnation of the witch of Storybook Lane)

A view of the shoe house from the famous nursery rhyme that the old lady lived in that's part of Storybook Lane

Mr Tofte became known in the park for always carrying a pail of cement in case something needs to be fixed at the park

The Big Timber log ride was built in 1996 and was extremely over budget according to Sue

The Ice Mountain bobsled roller coaster was first designed in 1983 but wasn't completed for another two years due to technical difficulties with getting visitors through the ride fast enough

Charging 50 cents, the Enchanted Forest opened its doors on Sunday August 8, 1971. ‘That day we had 75 people going through and during that weekend on the front page of the local paper they showed the castle so that next week we had about 1500,’ said Mr Tofte

The Tofteville western town was opened in the Enchanted Forest's second year of operation in 1972

Tofteville has its own saloon and also has Indian teepees for children to see what it was like in the days of the Wild Wild West

Following the completion of the Log Ride, Mr Tofte had the Kiddy Bumper Boats, the Kiddy Ferris Wheel and the Frog Hopper added for children to enjoy. He also built the Crazy Bumper Cars in 2002 for adults

Roger Tofte and son Kenneth work on making the Enchanted Forest bigger in the mid 1970s

A family affair: Mavis ran the day to day operations, Roger was the creative and their four children pitched in - and it remains the same to this day

Everyone in the family had a job to do. While Mrs Tofte ran the day to day operations and Mr Tofte handled the creative, they also implemented the help of their four children - 14-year-old Sue manned the entrance collecting cash in a cigar box, 12-year-old Kenneth ran along the trail cleaning and four-year-old Lori cleaned the tables. Seven-year-old Mary, had a fun job however.

Mr Tofte said: ‘She (Mary) worked in our 8 by 8 hot dog stand and we had some kind of wiring apparatus to put the hotdogs on and just electrocuted them.’

‘There was no child labor laws then,’ said Sue jokingly, ‘I think he liked having the company.’

A family affair: Roger Tofte (center) may be the visionary behind Enchanted Forest but he couldn't have done it without the support of his wife and children. Today most of his children and grandchildren play crucial roles in the parks maintenance - including (left to right) daughter Lori Stephens, grandson Derek Vaslev, daughter Mary Tofte, grandson Tim Tofte, Tim's wife Ashley Tofte, and daughter Sue Vaslev

When the park first opened Mrs Tofte ran the day to day operations and Mr Tofte handled the creative, they also implemented the help of their four children - 14-year-old Sue manned the entrance collecting cash in a cigar box, 12-year-old Kenneth ran along the trail cleaning and four-year-old Lori cleaned the tables. Seven-year-old Mary, had a fun job however. Mr Tofte said: ‘She (Mary) worked in our 8 by 8 hotdog stand and we had some kind of wiring apparatus to put the hotdogs on and just electrocuted them’

‘There was no child labor laws then,’ said Sue jokingly, ‘I think he liked having the company.’ Today Sue runs most of the operations surrounding the park and building projects

Sue is in charge of all the theatrical productions that the park runs, creating the costumes and arranging the music for the shows. Her sister Mary, handles most of the Enchanted Forest's finances

Mr Tofte pictured with his daughter Lori in front of the castle when the park first opened

With the growing success of the theme park, Mr Tofte set off to build Tofteville, an old western town with its own saloon, teepees and the works.

He has since added an old English village with a Celtic band playing classic tunes of the olden days.

‘Every year we add something new,’ he said.

‘We would just put something up and I would just dream about it as I went along.’

In addition to all the cement work, rides and other attractions the Enchanted Forest has a distinct set of music that was created by Sue who went to the University of Oregon for a music degree before traveling to Paris and Germany to play the harp.

‘We are the only theme park in America that does not pay royalties to anybody else,’ the 60-year-old said.

‘ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) came and asked us questions whether it was my music or not and I had to show them where I wrote it, where I recorded it, all my scores and I remember asking them at the time why is it such a big deal about it.

‘I didn’t feel that my music in the part was like any incredible symphony and they were like of “You don’t understand this is big business. We have begun to crack down on malls” and things like that but they did check that very carefully.’

Staff working on cleaning the rides at the park. Ticket prices range from nine to 12 dollars and all the rides are an additional set of tickets with one dollar giving two to four. And business seems to still be booming as over 200000 visitors visit the park annually

But Mr Tofte doesn't just employ family having over 90 staff members when the park is at its busiest during the summer. An employee does detailed painting in one of the buildings

Sue is in charge of all the theatrical productions that the park runs, creating the costumes and arranging the music for the shows.

With so much more at the park, it is no surprise that Mr Tofte and crew have something underway at the park.

They’ve been working on a small merry-go-round for kids but have been running into an issue that’s been present before.

Mr Tofte said: ‘This isn’t flat country so everything we build is much more expensive being on a hill. They have to pump all that cement up to about 200 ft of pipes.

‘I got the land because of all the trees and all that adds a lot to the atmosphere to the whole place but maybe if I wasn’t dumb and knew what I was doing I would have found maybe a flat ground.

‘This kind of adds to the charm of the whole place. Most parks are on flat land so this adds a little atmosphere to the place.’

Ticket prices range from nine to 12 dollars and all the rides are an additional dollar. And business seems to still be booming as over 200,000 visitors visit the park annually.

‘Back in the old days they wouldn’t get into any debt at all,’ said Sue.

‘They would only do what they could afford at the time. As the projects got bigger, they would loan us the money for it.’

But problems arose when they were building Ice Mountain.

Mr Tofte said: ‘This isn’t flat country so everything we build is much more expensive being on a hill. They have to pump all that cement up to about 200 ft of pipes.' The welcome sign to the Enchanted Forest's western town

The builder loves that his park is situated on a hill. He said: ‘This kind of adds to the charm of the whole place. Most parks are on flat land so this adds a little atmosphere to the place.’

The Haunted House was opened in 1974 and while the entire park is offers an eerie creepiness, this attraction definitely takes the prize for being one of the scariest at the park

Tickets are needed in order to go into the Haunted House and to ride some of the rides. But visitors can buy a pass to bypass the purchase of tickets

She said: ‘The builder of the track was going way over budget. It seemed like every two weeks we needed another 20,000. Then one day mom was just like we don’t have any more money.

‘So we had to go to US bank really quickly and that was when we got our first loan in a matter of hours.

‘We learned that there were going to be times, in the future with big projects where it would be better to take a reasonable loan out and then have money to back it up.’

Since then, they haven’t run into hardly any financial issues as they continue to add onto the attractions.

In 1976 Mrs Tofte was stricken with breast cancer and although she managed to eventually beat the disease, she was forced to step away from running the business side of the park.

Today Sue and Mary co-manage the Enchanted Forest.

Following in her mother’s footsteps, Mary handles the business side of things and is often in the office with her own son making sure scheduling and finances are in order.

Sue, like her father, is in charge of the creative. On top of making new tunes for the park and being in charge of the theatre she is heavily involved in most of the construction projects.

Her own son, 29-year-old Derek, is in charge of animatronics maintenance and handles the auto mechanics for the different creatures and attractions.

Lori owns her own architecture firm in Corvallis, Oregon which the family uses whenever they want to add any new buildings to amusement park.

And Kenneth still does his part in helping out when needed, although he now runs his own business as well.

Mr Tofte claimed that the medieval-themed Challenge of Mondor caught the eye of a familiar corporation. ‘We had four engineers from Disney come out when we put on our Mondor ride because it was one of the only ones in the States at that time because it just follows a wire in the floor,’ Mr Tofte said

He added: ‘They came up from Disneyland one time to look around and I took them around the park and they were pretty impressed with the atmosphere of the whole place’

At the Challenge of Mondor guest have to defeat a dragon and ride around shooting blasters at evildoers

Both Mr Tofte and his daughter are still surprised that the Enchanted Forest continues to thrive after all these years.

However, Sue always believed in her father’s vision.

‘When it opened up you could tell it was going to be successful. There was a buzz, from people constantly coming around,’ she said.

‘I remember going home with all the kids, jumping on the bed and mom and dad throwing all the dollar bills around. I was just thinking “oh we made it” and we were just so naïve then.’

‘I always believed in dad’s success and I never doubted.’

And while it is easy to find Mr Tofte throughout the attractions repairing what needs to be fixed, he and his wife don’t actually own the Enchanted Forest anymore.

‘They were actually really good about having an escape plan, said Sue, ‘It is all owned by me, my sister Mary and my sister Laurie.

The sisters intend to pass the business along to the next generation when the time comes, but the patriarch of the family still knows there is a place for him at the Enchanted Forest.

Mr Tofte said: ‘It is real rewarding especially with the family involved.

‘The rewarding part is seeing all the families come through and grand kids and grandparents and everybody is having a good time and everybody comes up to me and thanks me.

‘That is the amazing thing they come up to me and thank me for building this.’

The log ride today is one of the most popular attractions at the Enchanted Forest

A store located in the old English village

Souvenirs of the Enchanted Forest are vibrant and fun, which is what the park aims for