Disneyland: Walt's Impossible Dream

to all who come to this happy place welcome disneyland is your land where did you originally get the the first notion of disneyland well it came about when my daughters were very young and i saturday was always the daddy's day with the two daughters so we'd start out and try to go someplace with you know different things and i would take them to the merry ground and i took them different places and as i'd sit there while they uh they rode the merry ground did all these things sit on a bench you know eating peanuts i felt that there should be something built some kind of a amusement enterprise built where the parents and the children could have fun together walter elias disney and his older brother roy oliver disney started their company back in 1923. in those times it was known as the disney brothers studio and then later renamed to walt disney productions today it is known simply as the walt disney company 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 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 1940s 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 11-acre park across the street in the early 1950s walt had been offering rides on his backyard livestream 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 lilian had said why would you want that amusement parks are so dirty and dangerous walt 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 in early 1953 imagineer harper gough explained to walt that the current designs of the park exceeded the 11 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 to get financial backing roy knew a pile of papers with descriptions of the park were not enough to make a convincing pitch 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 studio's best artists herb ryman 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 and he went over and stood in the corner and and he kind of turned around and looked at me and he said well he said will you do it if i stay here with you so of course walt as you know was a very persuasive person the two of them worked throughout the weekend to generate the first image of the 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 medieval forecourt 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 hobbyists greatest dream roy made arrangements for walt disney productions to a lot 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 rhett law enterprises in the year 1950 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 welton beckett he reviewed walt's ideas for 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 1952 he created walt disney incorporated which was quickly renamed to wed enterprises the next year wed stood for the initials walter elias disney and it was his newly 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 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 lillian found out he had spent over 100 000 of their money she was livid walt reminded her that when the park would finally open lillian and her daughters would receive a 15 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 walt hired a man named harrison buzz price who was with the stanford research institute to find the land required for the ever-growing ideas of the park walt's requirements to buzz were that he needed at least 100 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 35 000 square miles in size eventually he came back to walt with a specific parcel 200 acres of orange and walnut groves in the sleepy rural town of anaheim california i'm the first guy that saw that site bar none it was a bunch of orange groves it was cheap land butted up against the still under construction 5 freeway giving convenient access to both los angeles and san diego and yet it was far enough away from the big cities that they could avoid the riff raff coming in walt quickly snatched up all 200 acres and went out to meet some of the farmers who sold their land one family went by the name dominguez and they had only one request on their land where two canary island date palm trees planted years before during a family wedding they hoped walt wouldn't cut down the trees 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 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 35 ownership in the park when roy left the meeting he immediately went back to bank of america to increase their loan to a further 8 million disneyland was now funded by a total of 17 million dollars and almost no one involved was fully convinced the idea would be a success [Music] on july 16th 1954 site leveling began walt was adamant the park would open the next year on july 17th an impossible deadline even for the mid-1950s 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 colorblind 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 bulldozer driver to stop him before he destroyed any more plants groundbreaking on disneyland happened on july 21 1954 and walt brought in retired navy admiral turned naval architect joe fowler to manage the construction contracts and oversee the work being done original construction plans called for the true life adventureland to be placed on the east side of the park but imagineer bill evans discovered a line of mature eucalyptus trees that were planted to shield the farms from the seasonal santa ana winds evans informed walt that the trees could protect the jungle foliage if adventureland was placed on the west side of the park instead when it came to the landscaping of disneyland walt was inspired by the tivoli gardens of copenhagen and denmark bill evans had the monumental task of planting up 60 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 80 mile radius from disneyland evans split the landscape design with imagineer ruth shellhorn she was already an accomplished landscape architect and she would design the more civilized areas of the park like main street fantasyland and tomorrowland whereas bill would create the exotic landscapes of adventureland and frontierland the former of which was particularly troublesome considering that southern california was a dry coastal plain but the jungle plants of adventureland would require humidity and lots of water with california being so limited on the kinds of plants that were sold bill ended up flying to countries around 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 evansi these plants are still alive and well in disneyland's jungle cruise today meanwhile roy disney had been worried about how the park was 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 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 40 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 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 45 minutes from where people lived and there was nothing there the first building completed at disneyland was the main street opera house 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 lily during the final stages of construction walt would stay overnight on the weekends to oversee the progress being made offering up advice and 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 bob gur was fresh out of school for auto body 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 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 was the result of the shape of its landscape a magic kingdom with 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 this was no place for a man with a hand shovel scooping out lakes and broad riverbeds paid off in enough dirt for rolling hills islands and mountains 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 30 feet high 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 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 the city of anaheim had to annex 800 acres of land surrounding the park in order to provide it with 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 power to light a small town the only thing they didn't get from the city was a way to get rid of rainwater runoff admiral joe fowler suggested that disneyland's gutters could drain into the man-made rivers and moats of the park allowing these bodies of water to be topped off by seasonal rainfall even to this day some of the original rainwater gutters still drain into the park's major outdoor waterways funds for disneyland continued to run thin fowler explained that there may not be enough money to complete the mark twain 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 its proper completion but walt was adamant that he gave the public his word the park would open on july 17th 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 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 27 years was sunk into disneyland and it all hung in the balance entirely predicated on the success of the world's first theme park 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 sections in their final location this technique was prominently used for the installation of the towers and turrets of the castle as well as the rooftops of main street station and even for constructing the markton riverboat 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 but walt noticed that this resulted in people getting lost and walking unnecessary distances 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 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 thanks to the artistry of the imagineers who were used to designing film sets disney could use forced perspective for purposes other than decoration 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 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 that could be achieved with a miniature scale this is why most buildings and park transportation systems even to this day are constructed in 5 8 scale although this is loosely followed since 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 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 this helped lend to the castle's fairy tale appearance although the paint job given to the castle was not one that walt disney or his imagineers liked but they didn't have time to dedicate to it so they left it with a simple blue and gray color scheme one that would haunt imagineer john hench for years afterward as the final spire was being lifted to the top of the castle it officially became the tallest structure in disneyland towering 77 feet over fantasyland and it would maintain the title of the park's tallest structure until matterhorn would be added four years later 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 roy would later admit the 24 karat gold finials indeed impressed park goers and it was a good decision with so little time and money to complete the park walt had to make do with some alterations to the plan fantasyland couldn't get its expensive fairy tale village look so imagineer 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 of walt disney's 20 000 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 evans to move a six-ton 30-foot wide pepper tree in adventureland about six feet just because it was too close to a park walkway there are also images of a small bandstand gazebo that was moved to several locations but in each one it blocked views on july 4th 1955 walt held a u.s independence day party at the nearly complete park the main attraction was for his friends and company employees to get their first ride aboard the disneyland railroad even though they could only ride part of the way around the park the party included an evening with fireworks in the sky it would be the first firework show disneyland ever had walt's disneyland railroad was the single most expensive attraction in the entire park but he insisted that it be built he was a lifelong railroad enthusiast and even offered visitors rides on his backyard livestream railroad he called the carrollwood pacific when disneyland was in its early stages of design he wanted the park to have its own railroad which aside from its miniature scale would operate just as the old-fashioned puffers used to a team of imagineers including roger brogi jerry best and earl vilmer helped to scale up walt's tiny lilly bell locomotive into two large steam engines that hauled authentic rolling stock the two locomotives were built in 5 8 scale and ran on three foot narrow gauge tracks which were all hand laid into the park the ck holiday engine number one fit perfectly at the frontierland depot with its freight train of cattle cars gondolas and caboose while the ep ripley engine number two was better suited for main street station since it hauled a set of six passenger coaches the two engines were named after two founding members of the santa fe railroad the company that sponsored disneyland's trains on july 13th 1955 just four days before the park was unveiled to the public walt and his wife lily celebrated their 30th 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 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 twain riverboat as its 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 [Music] opening day had come it was sunday july 17th and company ceo roy oliver disney older brother of walt had gotten up that morning after hardly getting any sleep he knew that walden abc network had planned a live telecast of the opening day events 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 29 television cameras 80 000 feet of cable and 14 improvised forklift camera platforms to deliver the festivities to a record-breaking viewership of 90 million across the country roy had started the long drive from la to anaheim along the brand new 5 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 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 27 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 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 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 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 105 degrees fahrenheit 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 queues 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 mark twain riverboat which was at one point filled with over 500 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 in adventureland overflowed the park became uncomfortably overcrowded because even though 11 000 invitations had gone out some ticket holders wrote that the number of guests was up to 60 people other tickets were counterfeited and sold on the streets in all the park was packed with 28 000 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 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 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 the park's opening as black sunday a name which walt 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 riverboat fly over london as peter pan or even hear the sharp cry of a steam whistle as an 1800s locomotive hauled happy visitors around the magic kingdom disneyland was a success and just 90 days after opening its 1 millionth visitor passed through its turnstiles that number today is closer to 700 million 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 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 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 where people have hatreds and prejudices it's not real over the years 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 of 11 years dying from lung cancer in december of 1966. he was 65 years old disneyland started off as just a park a great one at that a fun place to see your favorite characters and ride through fun adventures but no one could have foreseen the deep emotional and cultural impact it would have on all those who come to this happy place 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 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 you

Channel: Alex the Historian

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Id: J0f_Nc-y8FE

Length: 31min 28sec (1888 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 17 2022