The Lost World: A Boyhood Home in Scotts Valley, CA

A peek inside at my upcoming book by the same title, volume on adds to the experience.  My family and I built an amusement park named “The Lost World” in Scotts Valley, CA.  My father, Larry Thompson, mother Peggy, and grandparents William and Florence Thompson, helped design and build the park around Axel Erlandson's "Tree Circus", a completely unique grove of grafted trees.  In Scotts Valley, my father met Axel, originally a bean farmer from Turlock, CA, who had moved himself and his trees to the town several years before.  Then in his 70's, Axel wanted to sell the trees and my dad purchased them to continue Axel’s legacy.  My dad tended to the trees, making upgrades to the pathways and added a creek and waterfall, while Axel relaxed and watched the Lost World park grow up around his creations.  Because the new Hwy 17 bypass skirted around Scotts Valley Dr. shortly after we purchased the trees, our main avenue of customer traffic was cut off.  My dad needed a way to attract visitors back to the growing park.  Being influenced by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original film “The Lost World” (1925) he then created "Dinosaur Land", where dozens of huge life-size animatronic dinosaurs lived and could be seen from the new freeway, attracting visitors from San Jose going to the Boardwalk back around to our park.  My dad died when I was 5, and only a year after opening his park, in 1965.  I then grew up, until I went away to college, in Axel Erlandson's "Castle" that he built in the park (seen in the photos)  amongst the incredible forest of grafted trees and families of life-sized dinosaurs.  When I became old enough, I tended the trees and the dinosaurs too.  Not surprisingly, I became a paleontologist and a science teacher, now recently retired from teaching and creating a paleontology business of my own: “Pacific Paleontology” here in Santa Cruz and Monterey.  I have been writing a book on the history of our Lost World amusement park and Axel Erlandson’s Tree Circus and would welcome anyone sharing memories, photos, videos etc. to wthompsonctems@gmail.com or just txt to 831-535-8545.

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