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Cabbage Patch Kids in Cleveland, GA
 Known the world over as the birthplace of the Original Cabbage Patch Kids,
BabyLand General Hospital is a very real place. Cabbage Patch Kids are still
being "born" every day at the BabyLand General Hospital off of U.S. 129 in
Cleveland, Georgia is just 75 miles northeast of Atlanta. Housed in the former
Neal Clinic (circa 1900) BabyLand General Hospital welcomes over a quarter of a
million visitors each year.
Cabbage Patch Kids are the creation of Xavier
Roberts, who began delivering his handmade Little People Originals and
exhibiting them at arts and crafts shows in the southeast in 1976. After winning
a blue ribbon at the Osceola Art Show in Kissimmee, Florida, in 1978, he
returned to Georgia and incorporated Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc. with
several friends. The L.G. Neal Clinic, a turn-of-the-century medical facility in
Cleveland, Georgia, was turned into "BabyLand General® Hospital".
BabyLand
General Hospital is the place where all the Cabbage Patch Kids are "born." The
hand stitched dolls are presented to the public at the Magic Crystal Tree in the
main room at the hospital. Cabbage Patch Kid heads poke from the cabbages
underneath the tree, and kids (and parents) crowd around the fence surrounding
it. Every few minutes a nurse emerges from the trunk of the tree as the crowd
pushes in close. She reaches down into the center of a plant, brings a new doll
out from the hole in the cabbage and wraps it in a blanket. The new Cabbage
patch Kid is placed for "adoption" in the hospital's gift shop located in the
next room.
Babyland General Hospital is located at 73 W. Underwood St,
Cleveland, GA. The "hospital" is open Monday through Saturday 9 to 5, Sunday 10
to 5 eastern standard time, except certain holidays. Admission is free. Call
706-865-2171 for information.
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