Apple Valley Hillbilly Garden and Toyland

  Oral and Myrtle Wallace’s tiny 14’x 14’ country store, built in 1931, had a barber chair and a four seat diner. The couple sold home grown fruit and vegetables, chicken dinners, apple cider, and moonshine. They even had a gas pump. Myrtle continued selling produce after Oral died in 1964. When she died the property sat empty until their grandson, Keith Holt, returned to Kentucky with two truck loads of toys he had collected during his 20 years as a actor, standup comic, puppeteer, and circus clown in California. His dream was to build a museum with model trains running through a huge toyland.

       

   A lack of funding and resistance by local property owners quashed Keith’s plans, however undeterred, he started creating folk art  from discarded junk. Visitors receive a personal tour from Keith, his wife, or one of the kids. Keith’s tour is extensive with really bad puns and a story for each of the pieces of art. The tour takes a couple of hours but the experience is worth the bad puns. :-D

   The best part is the small shed that is jammed with 3,000 toys. This is only 20% of Keith’s collection. The rest are stored in a large tractor trailer box that is not open to the public.

   The ground is hard packed dirt and grass, a little lumpy but not to hard to push around. The country store and toy shed have steps at the entrances and are not accessible.

   Spotting the small entrance drive from the road is difficult. The parking area is too small and tight for large RVs. We barely fit with our 25’ class C.  Garden   36.98026, -88.48333