Disneyland Park, originally Disneyland, is the first of two theme parks built at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, opened on July 17, 1955.
It is the only theme park designed and built to completion under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. It was originally the only attraction on the property; its official name was changed to Disneyland Park to distinguish it from the expanding complex in the 1990s. It was the first Disney theme park.
Walt Disney came up with the concept of Disneyland after visiting various amusement parks with his daughters in the 1930s and 1940s. He initially envisioned building a tourist attraction adjacent to his studios in Burbank to entertain fans who wished to visit; however, he soon realized that the proposed site was too small. After hiring a consultant to help him determine an appropriate site for his project, Disney bought a 65 ha site near Anaheim in 1953. Construction began in 1954 and the park was unveiled during a special televised press event on the ABC Television Network on July 17, 1955.
Since its opening, Disneyland has undergone expansions and major renovations, including the addition of New Orleans Square in 1966, Bear Country (now Critter Country) in 1972, Mickey's Toontown in 1993, and Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge in 2019. Opened in 2001, Disney California Adventure Park was built on the site of Disneyland's original car park.
Disneyland has a larger cumulative attendance than any other theme park in the world, with 726 million visits since it opened, as of December 2018.
In 2018, the park had approximately 18.6 million visits, making it the second most visited amusement park in the world that year, behind only Magic Kingdom, the very park it inspired. According to a March 2005 Disney report, 65,700 jobs are supported by the Disneyland Resort, including about 20,000 direct Disney employees and 3,800 third-party employees (independent contractors or their employees).
Disney announced Project Stardust in 2019, which included major structural renovations to the park to account for higher attendance numbers.
More information: Disneyland
The United States Federal Aviation Administration has declared a zone of prohibited airspace around both Disneyland and some surrounding areas centred at Sleeping Beauty Castle. No aircraft, including recreational and commercial drones, are permitted to fly within this zone; this level is only shared with Walt Disney World, other pieces of critical infrastructure (military bases, Pantex) in the United States and whenever the President of the United States travels outside of Washington, D.C.
The concept for Disneyland began when Walt Disney was visiting Griffith Park in Los Angeles with his daughters Diane and Sharon. While watching them ride the merry-go-round, he came up with the idea of a place where adults and their children could go and have fun together, though his dream lay dormant for many years.
The earliest documented draft of Disney's plans was sent as a memo to studio production designer Dick Kelsey on August 31, 1948, where it was referred to as a Mickey Mouse Park, based on notes Disney made during his and Ward Kimball's trip to the Chicago Railroad Fair the same month, with a two-day stop in Henry Ford's Museum and Greenfield Village, a place with attractions like a Main Street and steamboat rides, which he had visited eight years earlier.
When people wrote letters to Disney to inquire about visiting the Walt Disney Studios, he realized that a functional film studio had little to offer to visiting fans, and began to foster various ideas about building a site near the Burbank studios for tourists to visit. His ideas evolved to a small play park with a boat ride and other themed areas. The initial park concept, the Mickey Mouse Park, was originally planned for a 3.2 ha plot to the south, across Riverside Drive from the studio. Besides Greenfield Village and the Chicago Railroad Fair, Disney was also inspired by Tivoli Gardens in Denmark, Knott's Berry Farm, Colonial Williamsburg, the Century of Progress in Chicago, and the New York's World Fair of 1939.
More information: History
His designers began working on concepts, though the project grew much larger than the land could hold. Disney hired Harrison Price from Stanford Research Institute to identify the proper area in which to position the planned theme park based on expected future growth. Based on Price's analysis, for which he would be recognized as a Disney Legend in 2003, Disney acquired 65 ha of orange groves and walnut trees in Anaheim, southeast of Los Angeles in neighbouring Orange County. The small Burbank site originally considered by Disney is now home to Walt Disney Animation Studios and ABC Studios.
Difficulties in obtaining funding prompted Disney to investigate new methods of fundraising, and he decided to create a show named Disneyland. It was broadcast on then-fledgling ABC. In return, the network agreed to help finance the park. For its first five years of operation, Disneyland was owned by Disneyland, Inc., which was jointly owned by Walt Disney Productions, Walt Disney, Western Publishing and ABC. In addition, Disney rented out many of the shops on Main Street, U.S.A. to outside companies.
By 1960, Walt Disney Productions bought out all other shares, a partnership which would eventually lead to the Walt Disney Corporation's acquisition of ABC in the mid-1990s. Construction began on July 16, 1954, and cost $17 million to complete, equivalent to $131 million in 2019. The park was opened one year and one day later. U.S. Route 101, later Interstate 5, was under construction at the same time just north of the site; in preparation for the traffic Disneyland was expected to bring, two more lanes were added to the free way before the park was finished.
Disneyland was dedicated at an International Press Preview event held on Sunday, July 17, 1955, which was open only to invited guests and the media. Although 28,000 people attended the event, only about half of those were invitees, the rest having purchased counterfeit tickets, or even sneaked into the park by climbing over the fence.
Disneyland Park consists of nine themed lands and a number of concealed backstage areas, and occupies over 40 ha with the new addition of Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway that's coming to Mickeys Toontown in 2022. The park opened with Main Street, U.S.A., Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland, and has since added New Orleans Square in 1966, Bear Country (now known as Critter Country) in 1972, and Mickey's Toontown in 1993, and Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge in 2019.
In 1957, Holidayland opened to the public with 3.6 ha recreation area including a circus and baseball diamond, but was closed in late 1961. It is often referred to as the lost land of Disneyland. Throughout the park are Hidden Mickeys, representations of Mickey Mouse heads inserted subtly into the design of attractions and environmental decor. An elevated berm supports the 914 mm narrow gauge Disneyland Railroad that circumnavigates the park.
More information: A Day in LA Tours
if we have the courage to pursue them.
Walt Disney
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