When the gnomes moved into a Pennsylvania state park, the children in town begged their parents to take them there.

Hikers had begun spotting the whimsical dwellings along the footpaths of Little Buffalo State Park, northwest of Harrisburg, in early December. As word spread on social media and in a local news broadcast, more and more families came, some traveling two or three hours.

But the fun was to be short lived. The smurf-like village was dismantled this week after state officials, citing the surge of visitors, declared it unwelcome, in a move that has generated outrage well beyond the park’s small-town setting by the Juniata River.

“We don’t really think it’s a state park kind of thing,” Jason Baker, the park’s manager, said. “We like to have more visitors. We like having people come here. But the experience we’re trying to give is a natural, ecological experience.”