The Wizard of Oz Museum · Fred & Palina
Behind the Museum: 145 Personal Stories
Ten chapters about the people, discoveries, decisions, surprises, and challenges behind the creation of the Wizard of Oz Museum.
Every museum has a story. Ours began long before we opened the doors.
Behind the Museum brings together 145 short personal stories from Fred and Palina. Some are about rare books. Others are about family, construction, visitors, mistakes, unexpected discoveries, and the ongoing challenge of making a museum work.
These stories complement our longer Museum History collection. Museum History explores the broader journey; here, you can discover the individual moments that made it happen.
Explore the Collection
Ten Chapters. 145 Moments.
Click Read Chapter to open the full collection of stories, or expand a card to browse its individual story titles.
Chapter 01
The First Spark
A childhood encounter with Oz becomes a lifelong interest in books, collecting, and sharing a remarkable literary world.
Explore all 13 story titles
- I Grew Up Thinking Oz Was Russian
- The Story We Waited All Year to Hear
- I Rediscovered Oz Through My Children
- The American Connection I Never Knew
- The Copyright Date That Fooled Me
- Before the Internet, Identifying a First Edition Was Hard
- How Research Turned Me Into an Oz Expert
- Why I Wrote a Collector's Guide
- There Isn't Just One Oz Book
- Baum Wrote Far More Than Oz
- Why I Donated a First Edition
- Why I Donated to the Judy Garland Museum
- I Took My Collection to the Land of Oz
Chapter 02
The Decision to Build a Museum
Palina's encouragement, visits to other museums, and the early decisions that transformed a private collection into a public idea.
About these 11 stories
Follow the transition from collecting Oz books to planning a museum that families could visit.
Chapter 03
Beyond the Books
New collecting directions, immersive experiences, and the creative choices that shaped the museum visitors would encounter.
Explore all 13 story titles
- Why I Started Buying More Than Books
- Why Van Gogh Is Inside an Oz Museum
- Oz Was Much Harder to Animate Than Van Gogh
- How Four Screens Become One World
- Why I Didn't Open in Orlando
- Why the Space Coast Made Sense
- The Wicked Witch That Cost Me a Museum Location
- COVID Hit Just as We Were Ready to Move
- We Had a Cocoa Beach Building Before COVID Took It Away
- The Delay Became Family Time
- The Lease That Finally Made the Museum Real
- I Had No Construction Background
- A 2,000-Square-Foot Room Almost Stopped the Museum
Chapter 04
Finding a Home and Opening the Doors
Unexpected property problems, construction hurdles, inspections, and the reality of opening a museum for the first time.
Explore all 13 story titles
- The Extra Exit That Cost Tens of Thousands
- Two Days Before Opening, the Fire Inspection Changed Everything
- We Were Improving a Building We Knew We'd Never Own
- We Opened Before the Museum Was Finished
- Our Very First Google Review Was One Star
- I Didn't Know What to Charge—So Visitors Decided
- I Personally Toured Almost Every Visitor
- How Visitors Helped Set the Ticket Price
- The Real Grand Opening Was February 2022
- For-Profit or Nonprofit?
- I Opened With Exactly One Employee
- We Painted and Built It Ourselves
- I Made a Video That Could Talk Someone Out of Buying a Ticket
Chapter 05
Finding Our Community
The first connections with visitors, local families, and the community that began to grow around the museum.
About these 15 stories
Explore how the museum began building relationships with its visitors and local community.
Chapter 06
What Visitors Taught Us
Questions, feedback, reviews, and the unexpected lessons that helped us understand what visitors really wanted.
About these 17 stories
Discover the ways visitor experiences influenced the museum's presentation and daily operations.
Chapter 07
The Collection Keeps Growing
New discoveries, rare collectibles, and the continuing effort to preserve and share the history of Oz.
About these 16 stories
Learn how the collection continued to develop after the museum opened.
Chapter 08
A Bigger Vision and a Building of Our Own
Growing ambitions, the search for a permanent home, and the decisions involved in planning the museum's future.
About these 19 stories
Follow the ideas and practical challenges behind the museum's next stage of growth.
Chapter 09
Jeannie and the Cocoa Beach Move
New exhibits, connections to television history, and the museum's move toward a new chapter in Cocoa Beach.
About these 19 stories
Explore the museum's evolving vision, including the Jeannie connection and the Cocoa Beach move.
Chapter 10
The Next Chapter Is Still Unwritten
Reflections on the journey, lessons learned, and the possibilities still ahead for Fred, Palina, and the museum.
About these 9 stories
Read the concluding reflections and the ideas shaping the museum's future.
There's More to Our Story
These 145 personal stories are part of a larger history. Visit our Museum History collection for a broader account of how the museum developed.
Explore Museum History →