The yellow brick road is a central element in the 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by American author L. Frank Baum.

The book's protagonist Dorothy is forced to search for the road before she can begin her quest to seek the Wizard, eventually finding out after meeting with the Munchkins and the Good Witch of the North.

Later in the book, Dorothy and her companions, the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion discover that the road has fallen into disrepair in some parts of the land, having several broken chasms ending at dangerous cliffs with deadly drops.

When Oscar Diggs arrived in Oz via hot-air balloon that had been swept away in a storm, the people of the land were convinced he was a great "Wizard" who had finally come to fulfill a long-awaited prophecy.

He opened a road tour of his musical, The Maid of Arran, in Ithaca, and he met his future wife Maud Gage Baum while she was attending Cornell University.

[5] Dallas, Texas makes a claim that Baum once stayed at a downtown hotel during his newspaper career (located near what is now the Triple Underpass) at a time when the streets were paved with wooden blocks of Bois D'Arc also known as Osage Orange.