© 2024
Virginia's Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Barnum of the Blue Ridge

Some call him Virginia’s own P.T. Barnum.

Mark Cline and his towering roadside attractions are known throughout the state. Maybe you recall his April Fool’s Day Foamhenge Project….or Dinosaur Land in White Post, Virginia.  There’s 75-hundred pound “lady in the lake” now living in Alabama….., and a 9-11 tribute in Waynesboro.

Cline has hundreds of foam and fiberglass figures and characters, many live in Natural Bridge, where his Enchanted Castle studio is located.

Now, a filmmaker is hoping to tell his story, with a documentary she’s calling “Barnum of the Blue Ridge.”

Emma Mankey Hidem followed Mark Cline for a year, filming at her own expense.  Now she’s got an all-or-nothing Kickstarter campaign, which runs through Thursday…..she says she has to raise another 9-thousand dollars.

Many of Cline’s attractions have burned to the ground in a fire, though Hidem does have them preserved on film.  

Check out the kickstarter campaign.  Mark Cline's Enchanted Castle website is here.

http://youtu.be/w1inMiKClQA