October 31, 2025 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, when Disneyland opened in 1955, the world had never seen anything like it. Walt Disney had spent years dreaming of a place where stories could be touched—where families could explore imagination as if it were real. But opening day was far from Walt's dream come true. Rides broke down, fake tickets slipped through the gates, and the California heat softened the pavement underfoot. Still, he refused to give up. Walt’s vision reshaped what an amusement park could be. From those early setbacks grew a lasting magic that transformed a few acres of California orange groves into one of the most beloved destinations in the world.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories.
Walt Disney had a way of dreaming that was bigger
than most people dare. He had ideas that were seemingly endless, impossible,
a little bit crazy. Walt obsessed over the smallest details,
not because anyone told him to, but because he refused
(00:30):
to disappoint. Here's Alex Adler, better known on YouTube as
Alex the Historian with our story.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Walter Elias Disney and his older brother Roy Oliver Disney
started their company back in nineteen twenty three. In those times,
it was known as the Disney brother Studio. The stories
and characters they created had become world famous, and tourists
who flocked to Hollywood wanted to visit the Disney studios
in hopes of finding something magical. But Walt's studio was
(01:11):
nothing more than ordinary offices and sound stages surrounded by
well tended lawns and rose gardens. He needed something that
could buffer their disappointment. In the early nineteen forties, he
thought of a themed corner of the studio where visitors
could meet their favorite characters, but this project eventually grew
into an idea for an eleven acre park across the street.
(01:32):
In the early nineteen fifties, Walt had been offering rides
on his backyard Livesteam Railroad in Holmby Hills, California, and
the sheer number of visitors the railroad received prompted him
to consider that Little Mickey Mouse Park idea. More seriously,
Roy Disney, who was CEO of the company, was skeptical
about opening an amusement park. Even Walt's wife, Lillian had said,
(01:55):
why would you want that? Amusement parks are so dirty
and dangerous. Walt's simply responded, that's just it. Mine wouldn't
be Reluctantly, Roy agreed to set aside money for research,
and Lillian conceded to go along with it. To get
financial backing, Roy knew a pile of papers with descriptions
of the park were not enough to make a convincing pitch,
(02:17):
so he asked Walt to have artwork commissioned that helped
potential financiers to visualize the concept. He turned around and
called upon one of his studios' best artists, Herbriman, to
create the rendering of the park over the weekend. Herb said, no, well,
I'm only just seeing these plans I don't want to
create an embarrassment for you or me. Walt went to
(02:37):
stand in the corner of the room. The stress of
trying to convince people the last few years to go
along with his plans for a themed park were beginning
to show. Herbie said he saw a tear form in
Walt's eye, and he responded, will you do it if
I stay here with you? Herbriman would later admit that
what was a persuasive person. The two of them worked
throughout the weekend to generate the first image of the
(02:59):
park that Walt would later name Disneyland, a name that
Ryman lightheartedly joked had sounded somewhat egotistical. The artwork depicted
the park with four themed lands, a jungle area to
represent the Land of Adventure, a futuristic city to represent
the Land of Tomorrow, an old West town complete with
a river boat to represent the frontier, and a large
(03:21):
medieval fore court with a fairytale castle to act as
the park's visual icon. This represented the Land of Fantasy,
complete with a carousel to pay homage to the idea
that started it all, and surrounding the park would be
a miniature railroad that would surpass any steam train hobbyist's
greatest dream. Roy made arrangements for Walt Disney Productions to
(03:45):
allot ten thousand dollars towards the research and development of Disneyland.
But when Walt needed more money, Roy suggested he create
a private company that would own the rights to Walt
Disney's name. That way, he could license the name out
to Walt Disney Productions, giving him weekly funding for the project.
And so Walt created rehet Law Enterprises in the year
(04:05):
nineteen fifty. It was the name Walter spelled backwards, and
by licensing his own name to the bigger company, he
received a weekly income of three thousand dollars. Walt hired
an architectural firm to design his park, but wasn't satisfied
with their concepts. He turned to his friend for advice,
the famed architect Walton Beckett. He reviewed Walt's ideas for
(04:27):
fanciful architecture built from modern materials. Walt, no one can
design Disneyland for you. We don't have that kind of
background for this, Beckett said. You have to use your
own people to build his magic kingdom. Walt needed complete control.
He didn't want Walt Disney Production's board of directors, voting
or vetoing his ideas before they came to fruition. In
(04:49):
nineteen fifty two, he created Walt Disney Incorporated, which was
quickly renamed to Webb Enterprises. The next year, WED stood
for the initials Walter Elias Disney, and it was his
new lif dubbed team of imagineers at WED Enterprises that
would dream up all of the future things that would
go into Disneyland. While Roy was able to get some
financial backers, such as Bank of America, he still wasn't
(05:12):
having much luck. Walt called around to various television studios
offering that they could help fund his park in exchange
for him starring in a television series he simply called Disneyland.
Until then, he continued borrowing money to help pay for
the development of his park. He took out fifty thousand
dollars from his life insurance and then sold his Palm
Springs vacation home. When his wife, Lilian found out he
(05:33):
had spent over one hundred thousand dollars of their money,
she was livid. Walt reminded her that when the park
would finally open, Lillian and her daughters would receive a
fifteen percent return on any merchandise that visitors bought with
his name on it. Still, Lily feared that his plan
would only work if the park would open, which seemed
increasingly impossible with each passing day. In early nineteen fifty three,
(05:57):
imagineer Harper Goff explained to Walt that the current is
of the park exceeded the eleven acre land parcel across
from the studio. It wasn't until Burbank City Council denied
his request to build an amusement park that Walt finally
admitted it was time to look for land in a
different place. Walt hired a man named Harrison Buzz Price,
who was with the Stanford Research Institute, to find the
(06:18):
land required for the ever growing ideas of the park.
Walt's requirements to Buzz were that he needed at least
one hundred acres which could not be located anywhere near
the beach in order to avoid the types of visitors
that might show up, and the park would need to
be easily accessible from all corners of southern California. It
wasn't easy. Buzz scoured five counties, an area roughly thirty
(06:39):
five thousand square miles in size. Eventually, he came back
to Walt with a specific parcel, two hundred acres of
orange and walnut groves in the sleepy rural town of Anaheim, California.
It was cheap land, butted up against the still under
construction five Freeway, giving convenient access to both Los Angeles
and San die and yet it was far enough away
(07:02):
from the big cities that they could avoid the riff
raft coming in. Walt quickly snatched up all two hundred
acres and went out to meet some of the farmers
who sold their land. One family went by the name Domingas,
and they had only one request. On their land were
two Canary Island date palm trees planted years before during
a family wedding. They hoped Walt wouldn't cut down the trees.
(07:24):
Being the sentimentalist that he was, Walt gave his word
that the trees would stay standing, a promise that survives
even to this day, as the two trees are both
located adjacent to the Jungle Cruise loading area. Walt had
purchased the land using money given to him by Bank
of America, but he was still in need of construction funding.
Roy went back to New York to request more money,
(07:46):
but they refused to lend any more unless Walt could
find a major financial backer. It turned out ABC Television
Network was looking to compete with more popular stations and
was in need of a big name like Walt Disney
to boost their popularity. ABC agreed to fund a large
portion of the construction in exchange for Walt starring in
the weekly Disneyland TV show and giving them thirty five
(08:08):
percent ownership in the park. When Roy left the meeting,
he immediately went back to Bank of America to increase
their loan to a further eight million. Disneyland was now
funded by a total of seventeen million dollars, and almost
no one involved was fully convinced the idea would be
a success. On July sixteenth, nineteen fifty four, sight leveling began.
(08:31):
Walt was adamant the park would open the next year
on July seventeenth, an impossible deadline even for the mid
nineteen fifties. To save money on fully grown trees, horticulture
imagineer Bill Evans suggested keeping some of the orange and
walnut trees. He tied special ribbons to the trees, which
indicated which were to be removed and which would stay.
As it turned out, the bulldozer driver was color blind
(08:54):
and had been removing all trees using his best guess
as to which would stay. The contractor arrived on the
site and ran out to the buldozer driver to stop
him before he destroyed any more plants.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And you've been listening to Alex Adler, better known on
YouTube as Alex the Historian, telling the story of this
crazy idea that Walt Disney had in his mind to
build an amusement park. Heck, his wife even hated the idea,
and when she found out he'd invested some of their
own family money in the project, she was furious. His
(09:27):
brother didn't get it, and heck, most of the folks
around him didn't. The banks didn't. He had a hard
time securing financing, but in the end he got those
two hundred acres in Anaheim, and off to the races
was Disney. When we come back more of this remarkable story,
the story of Disneyland. Here on our American stories, and
(10:09):
we continue with our American stories and with the story
of Walt Disney's impossible dream making of Disneyland. Let's return
to Alex Adler with the story.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Groundbreaking on Disneyland happened on July twenty first, nineteen fifty four,
and Walt brought in retired Navy admiral turned naval architect
Joe Fowler to manage the construction contracts and oversee the
work being done. When it came to the landscaping of Disneyland,
Walt was inspired by the Tivoli gardens of Copenhagen and Denmark.
Imagineer Bill Evans had the monumental task of planting up
(10:44):
sixty acres of themed park to look like it had
been there for ages. The sheer number of foliage he
had to purchase for the park easily exceeded both his
company's nurseries and all the local ones from Santa Barbara
to San Diego, a roughly eighty mile radius from Disney.
With California being so limited on the kinds of plants
that were sold, Bill ended up flying to countries around
(11:07):
the world and collecting plant specimens for the park. He
sometimes sneaked seeds from exotic plants into the country by
placing them in his socks. In his effort to acquire
the most exotic plants, Bill Evans even discovered a species
of plant that would later be named after him, Philodendron Evanzie. Meanwhile,
Roy Disney had been worried about how the park was
(11:27):
going to turn a profit. Research suggested that merchandise sales
alone could carry the financial burdens of the park, but
he feared that all the Disney merchandise combined could not
fill the numerous gift shops around the park. They would
have to be rented out to third party retailers. Park
sponsorships also could help ease the cost of operation, but
Disneyland was such a risk that no company wanted to
(11:49):
accept a sponsorship deal. That was until the Swift Meatpacking
Company agreed to operate the market house on Main Street,
and their sponsorship opened the floodgates to around forty other
companies that promptly signed up. Walt was so excited to
show off the progress of his park to his friend,
television host Art link Letter, he made him promise that
(12:09):
he couldn't tell anyone what he was about to see.
Link Letter recalled, I couldn't believe my eyes. We were
driving through orange groves and dirt roads. I didn't tell
him what I really thought that he was out of
his mind. After all, it was forty five minutes from
where people lived and there was nothing there. The first
building completed at Disneyland was the Main Street Opera House,
(12:30):
which had a massive floor space used as a lumber
mill and machine shop to construct the rest of the park.
The next building was the Firehouse next to City Hall.
Above the firehouse on the second level was a tiny
one bedroom apartment for Walt and Lily. During the final
stages of construction, Walt would stay overnight on the weekends
to oversee the progress being made, offering up advice and
(12:52):
instruction along the way. When it came to Tomorrowland, Walt
wanted to showcase the innovations of the near future. At
this time, freeways across California were being constructed and Americans
were excited to see a highway that featured no stops.
It was this that inspired Walt to create an almost
utopian auto motorway for Disneyland, and he would call it Autopia.
(13:15):
Bob Gerr was fresh out of school for autobody design
and was hired as an imagineer for wed. Bob's first
task was to design cars for the Autopia, which was
a task much more difficult than it seems. He needed
a miniature car that could be operated by one pedal
and could drive all day on low gear, withstand constant
impacts without cracking the frame, and could easily be driven
(13:35):
even by a child. This immediately required the transmission to
withstand such rigorous work, especially with a modified clutch. It
was Bob's ability to think on the spot and offer
insight that Walt would also appoint him to help design
other ride vehicle projects around the park. While vehicles gave
Disneyland its motion, the wonder that the park would inspire
(13:56):
was the result of the shape of its landscape. A
magic kingdom with d flat land doesn't leave much of
an impression, especially considering that Walt didn't want the public
to be able to see inside the park from the outside,
and he didn't want the incredible landscapes within to be
shattered by views of the surrounding city. When earth movers
had dug out lakes, riverbeds, canals, and streams around the park,
(14:18):
the massive amounts of dirt excavated from the ground were
then used to create a system of berms that surrounded
the park, some of them towering thirty feet high. There
was even enough dirt to create rolling hills and islands.
In fact, there was so much dirt that it would
have cost too much money to move it off site,
so the extra earth was piled up next to the
castle in a mound that was lovingly nicknamed Holiday Hill.
(14:42):
Over in Frontierland, the Rivers of America was carved out
and filled with water, only for crews to arrive the
next day and find that all the water had soaked
into the sandy Anaheim soil. Admiral Joe Fowler discovered a
local clay, and he had the river lined with it
to prevent the water from being absorbed into the ground.
City of Anaheim had to annex eight hundred acres of
land surrounding the park in order to provide it with
(15:04):
public works. The farmers that had lived on the property
before Disneyland had mostly lived off grid, without access to
sewage lines, rainwater sewers, and some homes didn't even have electricity.
Nearly two miles of clay pipe was laid down Harbor
Boulevard to connect Disneyland with the city's sewage systems. New
power lines were erected to supply the park with enough
(15:24):
power to light a small Town. Funds for Disneyland continued
to run thin. Fowler explained that there may not be
enough money to complete the Marktwain Riverboat. Walt mortgaged his
remaining home to fund the completion of it. His wife,
Lily protested this, and of course he got into a
heated argument with his brother. Roy pleaded that he consider
postponing the opening of the park in order to ensure
(15:46):
its proper completion, but Walt was adamant that he gave
the public his word the park would open on July seventeenth,
come hell or high water. If it didn't, they might
lose the confidence of all the creditors and sponsors, and
the company would suffer as shareholders might pull out, causing
a rippling effect that would doom the park and the studio.
(16:06):
The studio itself wasn't producing any live action movies as
the various sound stages were being used as fabrication sites
for ride systems and special effects. Everything they worked up to,
everything they built over the last twenty seven years, was
sunk into Disneyland, and it all hung in the balance,
entirely predicated on the success of the world's first theme park.
(16:28):
With time running out, construction on the attraction we know
today as Storybook Land was facing new challenges. Bill Evans
had exhausted all the nearby plant nurseries and there was
nothing left to plant. The Canal boat ride while constructed,
Bill to label all the weeds growing around the dirt
hills of the boat ride with their Latin names, hoping
to disguise the situation as an intentional feature of the ride.
(16:51):
To help speed up construction of the park, cutting edge
techniques were used. Parts of the buildings and their facades
were prefabricated in the opera house and installed in section
in their final location. The layout of Disneyland was also
something master planned. Many amusement parks often tried to maximize
land use by placing rides and buildings wherever space would allow,
(17:11):
but Walt noticed that this resulted in people getting lost
and walking unnecessary distances. He had a special nickname for
the particular exhaustion that comes from a poorly laid out venue.
He called it museum feet. Disneyland was designed in a
spoke and wheel shape, with the various lands fanning out
from the center. The park itself had only one exit
so that people wouldn't get confused about which way led
(17:33):
to their car, and each land within the Magic Kingdom
had only one entrance, ensuring that you couldn't get lost
while inside Disneyland because all lands emptied back into the
central plaza. Forced perspective was in heavy use at Disneyland.
Walt wanted guests entering the park to marvel at its size,
so the building facades on the north end of Main
Street were designed slightly shorter than the building facades at
(17:55):
the south end, giving the illusion of distance, and this
worked well in reverse too, because at the end of
a tiring day, the guests would head back to Main Street,
and the larger buildings at the south end made the
exit of the park look closer than it really was.
Forced perspective was also used on all the individual buildings
as well. Walt wanted Disneyland to have charm, a sense
(18:15):
that could be achieved with a miniature scale. The various
restaurants and gift shops, which may look multi leveled, would
actually be made from three different scales. The bottom level
of most buildings in Disneyland are nine tenths of real size,
while the second level is five eighths and the third level,
if any, is half scale. Essentially, as the buildings rise higher,
(18:36):
the scale decreases with each level. The park's icon Sleeping
Beauty Castle is designed in varying scales at random. In
order to throw off the observer's sense of size. Walt
insisted the finial caps on the rooftops of the castle's
turrets be made of gold to impress park goers. Roy
insisted it was too costly, so Walt ordered gold finials anyway.
(18:56):
Roy would later admit the twenty four carret gold finials
in d impressed park goers. And it was a good decision.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
And you've been listening to Alex Adler, better known on
YouTube is Alex the History and telling one heck of
a story about Walt Disney. When we come back the
rest of this remarkable story, Walt's impossible dream here on
our American stories, and we're back with our American stories
(19:40):
and with the story of Walt Disney and his impossible dream, Disneyland.
Let's get back to our storytelling. Take it away, Alex.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
With so little time and money to complete the park,
Walt had to make do with some alterations to the plan.
Fantasy Land couldn't get its expensive fairy tale village look
so imagine settled for a medieval fair theme. Tomorrowland was
the least complete area. They had to fill the empty
buildings with random exhibits like the Bathroom of Tomorrow, and
they even installed the sets left over from the production
(20:11):
of Walt Disney's twenty thousand Leagues Under the Sea motion picture.
Despite the numerous setbacks, the construction crews made up for
it by tripling in size. Closer to the opening day,
many operations were going around the clock and crews put
in double shifts. Walt would walk the park having crews
tweaking the appearances of things. He even asked imagineer Bill
(20:32):
Evans to move a six ton thirty foot wide pepper
tree in Adventureland about six feet just because it was
too close to a park walkway. On July fourth, nineteen
fifty five, Walt held a US Independence Day party at
the nearly complete park. The main attraction was for his
friends and company employees to get their first ride aboard
(20:53):
the Disneyland Railroad, even though they could only ride part
of the way around the park. The party included an
eva with fireworks in the sky. It would be the
first fireworks show Disneyland ever had on July thirteenth, nineteen
fifty five, just four days before the park was unveiled
(21:14):
to the public, Walt and his wife Lily celebrated their
thirtieth wedding anniversary in the Golden Horseshoe Saloon in Frontierland.
As Lilian was cutting the cake, Walt's peers cheered for
him to make a speech, so he stood atop a
chair to address the crowd. But as he stood there,
beaming with pride and soaking in the view of all
the happy faces looking back at him, he forgot to speak.
(21:38):
For the first time, Walt got a glimpse of what
his life's achievement would be like an old Western saloon
in the middle of a magic kingdom, filled with joyous
grins and happy chatter. His daughter Sharon noticed tears in
her father's eyes, and she went up and took him
by the hand, encouraging him to make his speech. The
night would end with an evening cruise aboard the Mark
(21:58):
Twain Riverboat as it it's paddle wheel churned the waters
of the river. Joe Fowler would later find Lily and
Disney cleaning up after the party. She had a broom
in hand, and she swept the decks of the boat.
Fowler grabbed another broom and joined her. In just three days,
the park would be unveiled before the people of the world.
(22:19):
It was Sunday, July seventeenth, and company CEO Roy Oliver Disney,
older brother of Walt, had gotten up that morning after
hardly getting any sleep. He knew that Walt and ABC
Network had planned a live telecast of the opening day events.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Tati do everyone listen? Hank Weaver.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
For the past year, this signature has announced the opening
of Disneyland, the show.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Now it announces the opening of Disneyland, the place the
people and eyes around the world are focused on.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
These one hundred and sixty acres here in Anaheim, California.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
This afternoon, Disneyland, the world's most fabulous Kingdom, will be
unveiled before an invitational world premire.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Nothing like this had ever been done before. Up until
that day, the most television cameras ever used at a
live event were seven, but in order to cover the
grand scale of Disneyland, ABC had to borrow and rent
cameras from other networks, giving a total of twenty nine
television cameras eighty thousand feet of cable and fourteen improvised
(23:22):
foklift camera platforms to deliver the festivities to a record
breaking viewership of ninety million across the country. Roy had
started the long drive from la to Anaheim along the
brand new five Freeway. When he was only minutes from
the park, he hit traffic. His heart skipped a beat
as he wondered if there was freeway construction preventing people
(23:44):
from getting to Disneyland. He made his way through the traffic,
all the while worried that Walt's gamble on the park
would cause the company they started twenty seven years earlier
to go under and render the families homeless. As Roy
exited onto Harbor Boulevard, he realized there was no freeway construction.
The entire seven miles of traffic he endured were for
(24:06):
people waiting to park their cars at Disneyland. People were
lined up at the front gates in the summer heat.
Reporters were taking down notes with excited smiles on their faces,
and happy children bounced with glee as they waited to
see the magical Kingdom within. Roy saw a panic stricken
parking lot manager and asked what was wrong. The manager
explained that several buses of school kids had arrived after
(24:28):
being stuck in traffic, and now all the boys were
getting out and peeing in the parking lot. Roy himself
was just so relieved that everyone showed up. He simply
laughed and told the parking lot manager God bless them,
let them pee. To host the live telecast, Walt asked
Art link Letter, who in turn asked his friends Bob
Cummings and Ronald Reagan to be his co hosts. Cables
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were strewn about all over the park to connect the
cameras with the temporary command center. Some cables were strung
between the buildings, some lay in the middle of walkways,
and others were held up high in the air as
construction cranes hoisted makeshift filming platforms to capture aerial views
of Disneyland. The July heat reached one hundred five degrees fahrenheit.
(25:12):
Dry ice had to be fed into the cameras to
keep them from overheating. Women's high heels were sinking into
the asphalt, which in some areas had only been poured
earlier that morning. Actors missed their cues, and thirsty park
goers felt strong armed into buying pepsi and coke products.
Since there were no drinking fountains, no maximum capacity was
established for the Marktwain river boat, which was at one
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point filled with over five hundred passengers, and as the
boat rounded the bend in the river, water flowed over
its lower deck. While Walt was being shuffled from location
to location for the telecast, more problems arose. Garbage was
piling up backstage because the trucks never came to pick
it up. Bathrooms and Adventureland overflowed. The park became uncomfortably
(25:55):
overcrowded because even though eleven thousand invitations had gone out,
some ticket hold wrote that the number of guests was
up to sixty people. Other tickets were counterfeited and sold
on the streets. In all, the park was packed with
twenty eight thousand people, which exceeded the capacity of Disneyland
by ten thousand. One man stood by the park fence
with his ladder and charged a fee for people to
(26:17):
use it to climb into the park and gain access.
Soon the food was running out, Autopia cars were breaking down,
and there was a gas leak in Fantasyland that forced
the closure of the rides for the rest of the day.
This came as a relief to people who witnessed parents
hoisting their children over the carousel barrier so they could
get on the ride. Despite the long wait, the disasters
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kept mounting, and it all happened while Walt was kept
oblivious to the problems. By the end of the day,
he was finally informed of all that had happened, and
he was furious, to say the least. He yelled and
hollered for his imagineers to repair the park and get
it operating again in time for the public opening the
next day. Despite the bad publicity and the press nicknaming
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the park's opening as Black Sunday, a name which Whalt abhorred,
the park continued to draw in hordes of visitors every
day that summer. The public could see that Disneyland was
a place like no other on Earth. Average working class
people were able to experience a cruise through the exotic
jungles of the world, take a romantic journey aboard an
authentic stern wheeled steam river boat, fly over London as
(27:24):
Peter Pan, or even hear the sharp cry of a
steam whistle as an eighteen hundreds locomotive hauled happy visitors
around the Magic Kingdom Disneyland was a success, and just
ninety days after opening, its one millionth visitor passed through
its turnstiles. That number today is closer to seven hundred million.
(27:45):
When people wonder why Disneyland, being styled as a theme
park made it more successful than any other amusement park
in the world, the answer is best referred to a
quote by J. G. O'Boyle. A theme park without rides
is still a theme park. An amusement park without rides
is a parking lot with popcorn. Walt's little park in
Anaheim would soon become a quintessential part of Americana. Celebrities
(28:09):
and heads of state from all over the world would
visit Disneyland over the years. People don't just come because
it has rides and characters, but because it was and
still is a way for people to escape their woes,
if only for a day. Evangelist Billy Graham was given
a tour through Disneyland by Walt Disney himself. He asked
Billy what he thought of the park, and he responded,
(28:31):
I think it's a wonderful fantasy. This didn't sit well
with Walt, and he fired back saying, Billy, look around,
you look at all the people, all nationalities, all languages,
all smiling, all having fun together. This is the real world.
The fantasy is out there outside the park gates were
people of hatreds and prejudices. It's not real. Over the years,
(28:57):
Walt would continue to change and add to the park.
He was never satisfied with the status quo. He felt
that there should always be a new reason for people
to come and new things for them to experience. He
referred to Disneyland as his block of clay, which he
could continuously keep sculpting and shaping to fit the image
he wanted. Walt Disney enjoyed the park for a total
(29:18):
of eleven years, dying from lung cancer in December of
nineteen sixty six. He was sixty five years old. There
was no entertainer better than Walt Disney at figuring out
the best way to create an emotional connection with his audience.
He knew how to deliver an experience that could take
you to the corners of the earth and your imagination,
(29:38):
and all of it could be done in one magical
kingdom built by the man who made us all believe
that when you wish upon a star, your dreams can
come true. Because at least they did for him.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Madison Derricot, and a special thanks to
Alex Adler, known on YouTube as Alex the Historian. Go
to YouTube and check out his work. It's as good
as history can be. It comes alive on his YouTube channel.
The story of Walt's Impossible Dream, the Story of Disneyland.
(30:13):
Here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories.
Walt Disney had a way of dreaming that was bigger
than most people dare. He had ideas that were seemingly endless, impossible,
a little bit crazy. Walt obsessed over the smallest details,
not because anyone told him to, but because he refused
(00:30):
to disappoint. Here's Alex Adler, better known on YouTube as
Alex the Historian with our story.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Walter Elias Disney and his older brother Roy Oliver Disney
started their company back in nineteen twenty three. In those times,
it was known as the Disney brother Studio. The stories
and characters they created had become world famous, and tourists
who flocked to Hollywood wanted to visit the Disney studios
in hopes of finding something magical. But Walt's studio was
(01:11):
nothing more than ordinary offices and sound stages surrounded by
well tended lawns and rose gardens. He needed something that
could buffer their disappointment. In the early nineteen forties, he
thought of a themed corner of the studio where visitors
could meet their favorite characters, but this project eventually grew
into an idea for an eleven acre park across the street.
(01:32):
In the early nineteen fifties, Walt had been offering rides
on his backyard Livesteam Railroad in Holmby Hills, California, and
the sheer number of visitors the railroad received prompted him
to consider that Little Mickey Mouse Park idea. More seriously,
Roy Disney, who was CEO of the company, was skeptical
about opening an amusement park. Even Walt's wife, Lillian had said,
(01:55):
why would you want that? Amusement parks are so dirty
and dangerous. Walt's simply responded, that's just it. Mine wouldn't
be Reluctantly, Roy agreed to set aside money for research,
and Lillian conceded to go along with it. To get
financial backing, Roy knew a pile of papers with descriptions
of the park were not enough to make a convincing pitch,
(02:17):
so he asked Walt to have artwork commissioned that helped
potential financiers to visualize the concept. He turned around and
called upon one of his studios' best artists, Herbriman, to
create the rendering of the park over the weekend. Herb said, no, well,
I'm only just seeing these plans I don't want to
create an embarrassment for you or me. Walt went to
(02:37):
stand in the corner of the room. The stress of
trying to convince people the last few years to go
along with his plans for a themed park were beginning
to show. Herbie said he saw a tear form in
Walt's eye, and he responded, will you do it if
I stay here with you? Herbriman would later admit that
what was a persuasive person. The two of them worked
throughout the weekend to generate the first image of the
(02:59):
park that Walt would later name Disneyland, a name that
Ryman lightheartedly joked had sounded somewhat egotistical. The artwork depicted
the park with four themed lands, a jungle area to
represent the Land of Adventure, a futuristic city to represent
the Land of Tomorrow, an old West town complete with
a river boat to represent the frontier, and a large
(03:21):
medieval fore court with a fairytale castle to act as
the park's visual icon. This represented the Land of Fantasy,
complete with a carousel to pay homage to the idea
that started it all, and surrounding the park would be
a miniature railroad that would surpass any steam train hobbyist's
greatest dream. Roy made arrangements for Walt Disney Productions to
(03:45):
allot ten thousand dollars towards the research and development of Disneyland.
But when Walt needed more money, Roy suggested he create
a private company that would own the rights to Walt
Disney's name. That way, he could license the name out
to Walt Disney Productions, giving him weekly funding for the project.
And so Walt created rehet Law Enterprises in the year
(04:05):
nineteen fifty. It was the name Walter spelled backwards, and
by licensing his own name to the bigger company, he
received a weekly income of three thousand dollars. Walt hired
an architectural firm to design his park, but wasn't satisfied
with their concepts. He turned to his friend for advice,
the famed architect Walton Beckett. He reviewed Walt's ideas for
(04:27):
fanciful architecture built from modern materials. Walt, no one can
design Disneyland for you. We don't have that kind of
background for this, Beckett said. You have to use your
own people to build his magic kingdom. Walt needed complete control.
He didn't want Walt Disney Production's board of directors, voting
or vetoing his ideas before they came to fruition. In
(04:49):
nineteen fifty two, he created Walt Disney Incorporated, which was
quickly renamed to Webb Enterprises. The next year, WED stood
for the initials Walter Elias Disney, and it was his
new lif dubbed team of imagineers at WED Enterprises that
would dream up all of the future things that would
go into Disneyland. While Roy was able to get some
financial backers, such as Bank of America, he still wasn't
(05:12):
having much luck. Walt called around to various television studios
offering that they could help fund his park in exchange
for him starring in a television series he simply called Disneyland.
Until then, he continued borrowing money to help pay for
the development of his park. He took out fifty thousand
dollars from his life insurance and then sold his Palm
Springs vacation home. When his wife, Lilian found out he
(05:33):
had spent over one hundred thousand dollars of their money,
she was livid. Walt reminded her that when the park
would finally open, Lillian and her daughters would receive a
fifteen percent return on any merchandise that visitors bought with
his name on it. Still, Lily feared that his plan
would only work if the park would open, which seemed
increasingly impossible with each passing day. In early nineteen fifty three,
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imagineer Harper Goff explained to Walt that the current is
of the park exceeded the eleven acre land parcel across
from the studio. It wasn't until Burbank City Council denied
his request to build an amusement park that Walt finally
admitted it was time to look for land in a
different place. Walt hired a man named Harrison Buzz Price,
who was with the Stanford Research Institute, to find the
(06:18):
land required for the ever growing ideas of the park.
Walt's requirements to Buzz were that he needed at least
one hundred acres which could not be located anywhere near
the beach in order to avoid the types of visitors
that might show up, and the park would need to
be easily accessible from all corners of southern California. It
wasn't easy. Buzz scoured five counties, an area roughly thirty
(06:39):
five thousand square miles in size. Eventually, he came back
to Walt with a specific parcel, two hundred acres of
orange and walnut groves in the sleepy rural town of Anaheim, California.
It was cheap land, butted up against the still under
construction five Freeway, giving convenient access to both Los Angeles
and San die and yet it was far enough away
(07:02):
from the big cities that they could avoid the riff
raft coming in. Walt quickly snatched up all two hundred
acres and went out to meet some of the farmers
who sold their land. One family went by the name Domingas,
and they had only one request. On their land were
two Canary Island date palm trees planted years before during
a family wedding. They hoped Walt wouldn't cut down the trees.
(07:24):
Being the sentimentalist that he was, Walt gave his word
that the trees would stay standing, a promise that survives
even to this day, as the two trees are both
located adjacent to the Jungle Cruise loading area. Walt had
purchased the land using money given to him by Bank
of America, but he was still in need of construction funding.
Roy went back to New York to request more money,
(07:46):
but they refused to lend any more unless Walt could
find a major financial backer. It turned out ABC Television
Network was looking to compete with more popular stations and
was in need of a big name like Walt Disney
to boost their popularity. ABC agreed to fund a large
portion of the construction in exchange for Walt starring in
the weekly Disneyland TV show and giving them thirty five
(08:08):
percent ownership in the park. When Roy left the meeting,
he immediately went back to Bank of America to increase
their loan to a further eight million. Disneyland was now
funded by a total of seventeen million dollars, and almost
no one involved was fully convinced the idea would be
a success. On July sixteenth, nineteen fifty four, sight leveling began.
(08:31):
Walt was adamant the park would open the next year
on July seventeenth, an impossible deadline even for the mid
nineteen fifties. To save money on fully grown trees, horticulture
imagineer Bill Evans suggested keeping some of the orange and
walnut trees. He tied special ribbons to the trees, which
indicated which were to be removed and which would stay.
As it turned out, the bulldozer driver was color blind
(08:54):
and had been removing all trees using his best guess
as to which would stay. The contractor arrived on the
site and ran out to the buldozer driver to stop
him before he destroyed any more plants.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And you've been listening to Alex Adler, better known on
YouTube as Alex the Historian, telling the story of this
crazy idea that Walt Disney had in his mind to
build an amusement park. Heck, his wife even hated the idea,
and when she found out he'd invested some of their
own family money in the project, she was furious. His
(09:27):
brother didn't get it, and heck, most of the folks
around him didn't. The banks didn't. He had a hard
time securing financing, but in the end he got those
two hundred acres in Anaheim, and off to the races
was Disney. When we come back more of this remarkable story,
the story of Disneyland. Here on our American stories, and
(10:09):
we continue with our American stories and with the story
of Walt Disney's impossible dream making of Disneyland. Let's return
to Alex Adler with the story.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Groundbreaking on Disneyland happened on July twenty first, nineteen fifty four,
and Walt brought in retired Navy admiral turned naval architect
Joe Fowler to manage the construction contracts and oversee the
work being done. When it came to the landscaping of Disneyland,
Walt was inspired by the Tivoli gardens of Copenhagen and Denmark.
Imagineer Bill Evans had the monumental task of planting up
(10:44):
sixty acres of themed park to look like it had
been there for ages. The sheer number of foliage he
had to purchase for the park easily exceeded both his
company's nurseries and all the local ones from Santa Barbara
to San Diego, a roughly eighty mile radius from Disney.
With California being so limited on the kinds of plants
that were sold, Bill ended up flying to countries around
(11:07):
the world and collecting plant specimens for the park. He
sometimes sneaked seeds from exotic plants into the country by
placing them in his socks. In his effort to acquire
the most exotic plants, Bill Evans even discovered a species
of plant that would later be named after him, Philodendron Evanzie. Meanwhile,
Roy Disney had been worried about how the park was
(11:27):
going to turn a profit. Research suggested that merchandise sales
alone could carry the financial burdens of the park, but
he feared that all the Disney merchandise combined could not
fill the numerous gift shops around the park. They would
have to be rented out to third party retailers. Park
sponsorships also could help ease the cost of operation, but
Disneyland was such a risk that no company wanted to
(11:49):
accept a sponsorship deal. That was until the Swift Meatpacking
Company agreed to operate the market house on Main Street,
and their sponsorship opened the floodgates to around forty other
companies that promptly signed up. Walt was so excited to
show off the progress of his park to his friend,
television host Art link Letter, he made him promise that
(12:09):
he couldn't tell anyone what he was about to see.
Link Letter recalled, I couldn't believe my eyes. We were
driving through orange groves and dirt roads. I didn't tell
him what I really thought that he was out of
his mind. After all, it was forty five minutes from
where people lived and there was nothing there. The first
building completed at Disneyland was the Main Street Opera House,
(12:30):
which had a massive floor space used as a lumber
mill and machine shop to construct the rest of the park.
The next building was the Firehouse next to City Hall.
Above the firehouse on the second level was a tiny
one bedroom apartment for Walt and Lily. During the final
stages of construction, Walt would stay overnight on the weekends
to oversee the progress being made, offering up advice and
(12:52):
instruction along the way. When it came to Tomorrowland, Walt
wanted to showcase the innovations of the near future. At
this time, freeways across California were being constructed and Americans
were excited to see a highway that featured no stops.
It was this that inspired Walt to create an almost
utopian auto motorway for Disneyland, and he would call it Autopia.
(13:15):
Bob Gerr was fresh out of school for autobody design
and was hired as an imagineer for wed. Bob's first
task was to design cars for the Autopia, which was
a task much more difficult than it seems. He needed
a miniature car that could be operated by one pedal
and could drive all day on low gear, withstand constant
impacts without cracking the frame, and could easily be driven
(13:35):
even by a child. This immediately required the transmission to
withstand such rigorous work, especially with a modified clutch. It
was Bob's ability to think on the spot and offer
insight that Walt would also appoint him to help design
other ride vehicle projects around the park. While vehicles gave
Disneyland its motion, the wonder that the park would inspire
(13:56):
was the result of the shape of its landscape. A
magic kingdom with d flat land doesn't leave much of
an impression, especially considering that Walt didn't want the public
to be able to see inside the park from the outside,
and he didn't want the incredible landscapes within to be
shattered by views of the surrounding city. When earth movers
had dug out lakes, riverbeds, canals, and streams around the park,
(14:18):
the massive amounts of dirt excavated from the ground were
then used to create a system of berms that surrounded
the park, some of them towering thirty feet high. There
was even enough dirt to create rolling hills and islands.
In fact, there was so much dirt that it would
have cost too much money to move it off site,
so the extra earth was piled up next to the
castle in a mound that was lovingly nicknamed Holiday Hill.
(14:42):
Over in Frontierland, the Rivers of America was carved out
and filled with water, only for crews to arrive the
next day and find that all the water had soaked
into the sandy Anaheim soil. Admiral Joe Fowler discovered a
local clay, and he had the river lined with it
to prevent the water from being absorbed into the ground.
City of Anaheim had to annex eight hundred acres of
land surrounding the park in order to provide it with
(15:04):
public works. The farmers that had lived on the property
before Disneyland had mostly lived off grid, without access to
sewage lines, rainwater sewers, and some homes didn't even have electricity.
Nearly two miles of clay pipe was laid down Harbor
Boulevard to connect Disneyland with the city's sewage systems. New
power lines were erected to supply the park with enough
(15:24):
power to light a small Town. Funds for Disneyland continued
to run thin. Fowler explained that there may not be
enough money to complete the Marktwain Riverboat. Walt mortgaged his
remaining home to fund the completion of it. His wife,
Lily protested this, and of course he got into a
heated argument with his brother. Roy pleaded that he consider
postponing the opening of the park in order to ensure
(15:46):
its proper completion, but Walt was adamant that he gave
the public his word the park would open on July seventeenth,
come hell or high water. If it didn't, they might
lose the confidence of all the creditors and sponsors, and
the company would suffer as shareholders might pull out, causing
a rippling effect that would doom the park and the studio.
(16:06):
The studio itself wasn't producing any live action movies as
the various sound stages were being used as fabrication sites
for ride systems and special effects. Everything they worked up to,
everything they built over the last twenty seven years, was
sunk into Disneyland, and it all hung in the balance,
entirely predicated on the success of the world's first theme park.
(16:28):
With time running out, construction on the attraction we know
today as Storybook Land was facing new challenges. Bill Evans
had exhausted all the nearby plant nurseries and there was
nothing left to plant. The Canal boat ride while constructed,
Bill to label all the weeds growing around the dirt
hills of the boat ride with their Latin names, hoping
to disguise the situation as an intentional feature of the ride.
(16:51):
To help speed up construction of the park, cutting edge
techniques were used. Parts of the buildings and their facades
were prefabricated in the opera house and installed in section
in their final location. The layout of Disneyland was also
something master planned. Many amusement parks often tried to maximize
land use by placing rides and buildings wherever space would allow,
(17:11):
but Walt noticed that this resulted in people getting lost
and walking unnecessary distances. He had a special nickname for
the particular exhaustion that comes from a poorly laid out venue.
He called it museum feet. Disneyland was designed in a
spoke and wheel shape, with the various lands fanning out
from the center. The park itself had only one exit
so that people wouldn't get confused about which way led
(17:33):
to their car, and each land within the Magic Kingdom
had only one entrance, ensuring that you couldn't get lost
while inside Disneyland because all lands emptied back into the
central plaza. Forced perspective was in heavy use at Disneyland.
Walt wanted guests entering the park to marvel at its size,
so the building facades on the north end of Main
Street were designed slightly shorter than the building facades at
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the south end, giving the illusion of distance, and this
worked well in reverse too, because at the end of
a tiring day, the guests would head back to Main Street,
and the larger buildings at the south end made the
exit of the park look closer than it really was.
Forced perspective was also used on all the individual buildings
as well. Walt wanted Disneyland to have charm, a sense
(18:15):
that could be achieved with a miniature scale. The various
restaurants and gift shops, which may look multi leveled, would
actually be made from three different scales. The bottom level
of most buildings in Disneyland are nine tenths of real size,
while the second level is five eighths and the third level,
if any, is half scale. Essentially, as the buildings rise higher,
(18:36):
the scale decreases with each level. The park's icon Sleeping
Beauty Castle is designed in varying scales at random. In
order to throw off the observer's sense of size. Walt
insisted the finial caps on the rooftops of the castle's
turrets be made of gold to impress park goers. Roy
insisted it was too costly, so Walt ordered gold finials anyway.
(18:56):
Roy would later admit the twenty four carret gold finials
in d impressed park goers. And it was a good decision.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
And you've been listening to Alex Adler, better known on
YouTube is Alex the History and telling one heck of
a story about Walt Disney. When we come back the
rest of this remarkable story, Walt's impossible dream here on
our American stories, and we're back with our American stories
(19:40):
and with the story of Walt Disney and his impossible dream, Disneyland.
Let's get back to our storytelling. Take it away, Alex.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
With so little time and money to complete the park,
Walt had to make do with some alterations to the plan.
Fantasy Land couldn't get its expensive fairy tale village look
so imagine settled for a medieval fair theme. Tomorrowland was
the least complete area. They had to fill the empty
buildings with random exhibits like the Bathroom of Tomorrow, and
they even installed the sets left over from the production
(20:11):
of Walt Disney's twenty thousand Leagues Under the Sea motion picture.
Despite the numerous setbacks, the construction crews made up for
it by tripling in size. Closer to the opening day,
many operations were going around the clock and crews put
in double shifts. Walt would walk the park having crews
tweaking the appearances of things. He even asked imagineer Bill
(20:32):
Evans to move a six ton thirty foot wide pepper
tree in Adventureland about six feet just because it was
too close to a park walkway. On July fourth, nineteen
fifty five, Walt held a US Independence Day party at
the nearly complete park. The main attraction was for his
friends and company employees to get their first ride aboard
(20:53):
the Disneyland Railroad, even though they could only ride part
of the way around the park. The party included an
eva with fireworks in the sky. It would be the
first fireworks show Disneyland ever had on July thirteenth, nineteen
fifty five, just four days before the park was unveiled
(21:14):
to the public, Walt and his wife Lily celebrated their
thirtieth wedding anniversary in the Golden Horseshoe Saloon in Frontierland.
As Lilian was cutting the cake, Walt's peers cheered for
him to make a speech, so he stood atop a
chair to address the crowd. But as he stood there,
beaming with pride and soaking in the view of all
the happy faces looking back at him, he forgot to speak.
(21:38):
For the first time, Walt got a glimpse of what
his life's achievement would be like an old Western saloon
in the middle of a magic kingdom, filled with joyous
grins and happy chatter. His daughter Sharon noticed tears in
her father's eyes, and she went up and took him
by the hand, encouraging him to make his speech. The
night would end with an evening cruise aboard the Mark
(21:58):
Twain Riverboat as it it's paddle wheel churned the waters
of the river. Joe Fowler would later find Lily and
Disney cleaning up after the party. She had a broom
in hand, and she swept the decks of the boat.
Fowler grabbed another broom and joined her. In just three days,
the park would be unveiled before the people of the world.
(22:19):
It was Sunday, July seventeenth, and company CEO Roy Oliver Disney,
older brother of Walt, had gotten up that morning after
hardly getting any sleep. He knew that Walt and ABC
Network had planned a live telecast of the opening day events.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Tati do everyone listen? Hank Weaver.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
For the past year, this signature has announced the opening
of Disneyland, the show.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Now it announces the opening of Disneyland, the place the
people and eyes around the world are focused on.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
These one hundred and sixty acres here in Anaheim, California.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
This afternoon, Disneyland, the world's most fabulous Kingdom, will be
unveiled before an invitational world premire.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Nothing like this had ever been done before. Up until
that day, the most television cameras ever used at a
live event were seven, but in order to cover the
grand scale of Disneyland, ABC had to borrow and rent
cameras from other networks, giving a total of twenty nine
television cameras eighty thousand feet of cable and fourteen improvised
(23:22):
foklift camera platforms to deliver the festivities to a record
breaking viewership of ninety million across the country. Roy had
started the long drive from la to Anaheim along the
brand new five Freeway. When he was only minutes from
the park, he hit traffic. His heart skipped a beat
as he wondered if there was freeway construction preventing people
(23:44):
from getting to Disneyland. He made his way through the traffic,
all the while worried that Walt's gamble on the park
would cause the company they started twenty seven years earlier
to go under and render the families homeless. As Roy
exited onto Harbor Boulevard, he realized there was no freeway construction.
The entire seven miles of traffic he endured were for
(24:06):
people waiting to park their cars at Disneyland. People were
lined up at the front gates in the summer heat.
Reporters were taking down notes with excited smiles on their faces,
and happy children bounced with glee as they waited to
see the magical Kingdom within. Roy saw a panic stricken
parking lot manager and asked what was wrong. The manager
explained that several buses of school kids had arrived after
(24:28):
being stuck in traffic, and now all the boys were
getting out and peeing in the parking lot. Roy himself
was just so relieved that everyone showed up. He simply
laughed and told the parking lot manager God bless them,
let them pee. To host the live telecast, Walt asked
Art link Letter, who in turn asked his friends Bob
Cummings and Ronald Reagan to be his co hosts. Cables
(24:51):
were strewn about all over the park to connect the
cameras with the temporary command center. Some cables were strung
between the buildings, some lay in the middle of walkways,
and others were held up high in the air as
construction cranes hoisted makeshift filming platforms to capture aerial views
of Disneyland. The July heat reached one hundred five degrees fahrenheit.
(25:12):
Dry ice had to be fed into the cameras to
keep them from overheating. Women's high heels were sinking into
the asphalt, which in some areas had only been poured
earlier that morning. Actors missed their cues, and thirsty park
goers felt strong armed into buying pepsi and coke products.
Since there were no drinking fountains, no maximum capacity was
established for the Marktwain river boat, which was at one
(25:34):
point filled with over five hundred passengers, and as the
boat rounded the bend in the river, water flowed over
its lower deck. While Walt was being shuffled from location
to location for the telecast, more problems arose. Garbage was
piling up backstage because the trucks never came to pick
it up. Bathrooms and Adventureland overflowed. The park became uncomfortably
(25:55):
overcrowded because even though eleven thousand invitations had gone out,
some ticket hold wrote that the number of guests was
up to sixty people. Other tickets were counterfeited and sold
on the streets. In all, the park was packed with
twenty eight thousand people, which exceeded the capacity of Disneyland
by ten thousand. One man stood by the park fence
with his ladder and charged a fee for people to
(26:17):
use it to climb into the park and gain access.
Soon the food was running out, Autopia cars were breaking down,
and there was a gas leak in Fantasyland that forced
the closure of the rides for the rest of the day.
This came as a relief to people who witnessed parents
hoisting their children over the carousel barrier so they could
get on the ride. Despite the long wait, the disasters
(26:38):
kept mounting, and it all happened while Walt was kept
oblivious to the problems. By the end of the day,
he was finally informed of all that had happened, and
he was furious, to say the least. He yelled and
hollered for his imagineers to repair the park and get
it operating again in time for the public opening the
next day. Despite the bad publicity and the press nicknaming
(27:00):
the park's opening as Black Sunday, a name which Whalt abhorred,
the park continued to draw in hordes of visitors every
day that summer. The public could see that Disneyland was
a place like no other on Earth. Average working class
people were able to experience a cruise through the exotic
jungles of the world, take a romantic journey aboard an
authentic stern wheeled steam river boat, fly over London as
(27:24):
Peter Pan, or even hear the sharp cry of a
steam whistle as an eighteen hundreds locomotive hauled happy visitors
around the Magic Kingdom Disneyland was a success, and just
ninety days after opening, its one millionth visitor passed through
its turnstiles. That number today is closer to seven hundred million.
(27:45):
When people wonder why Disneyland, being styled as a theme
park made it more successful than any other amusement park
in the world, the answer is best referred to a
quote by J. G. O'Boyle. A theme park without rides
is still a theme park. An amusement park without rides
is a parking lot with popcorn. Walt's little park in
Anaheim would soon become a quintessential part of Americana. Celebrities
(28:09):
and heads of state from all over the world would
visit Disneyland over the years. People don't just come because
it has rides and characters, but because it was and
still is a way for people to escape their woes,
if only for a day. Evangelist Billy Graham was given
a tour through Disneyland by Walt Disney himself. He asked
Billy what he thought of the park, and he responded,
(28:31):
I think it's a wonderful fantasy. This didn't sit well
with Walt, and he fired back saying, Billy, look around,
you look at all the people, all nationalities, all languages,
all smiling, all having fun together. This is the real world.
The fantasy is out there outside the park gates were
people of hatreds and prejudices. It's not real. Over the years,
(28:57):
Walt would continue to change and add to the park.
He was never satisfied with the status quo. He felt
that there should always be a new reason for people
to come and new things for them to experience. He
referred to Disneyland as his block of clay, which he
could continuously keep sculpting and shaping to fit the image
he wanted. Walt Disney enjoyed the park for a total
(29:18):
of eleven years, dying from lung cancer in December of
nineteen sixty six. He was sixty five years old. There
was no entertainer better than Walt Disney at figuring out
the best way to create an emotional connection with his audience.
He knew how to deliver an experience that could take
you to the corners of the earth and your imagination,
(29:38):
and all of it could be done in one magical
kingdom built by the man who made us all believe
that when you wish upon a star, your dreams can
come true. Because at least they did for him.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Madison Derricot, and a special thanks to
Alex Adler, known on YouTube as Alex the Historian. Go
to YouTube and check out his work. It's as good
as history can be. It comes alive on his YouTube channel.
The story of Walt's Impossible Dream, the Story of Disneyland.
(30:13):
Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!