Walt Disney Co. likes to resurrect a famous Walt Disney quote saying that the empire was “started by a mouse.” But when it comes to Disneyland, its theme park that become a SoCal institution, fans and history buffs crave specifics.
A new exhibit at San Francisco’s Walt Disney Family Museum aims to chart the beginnings and early evolution of the Anaheim resort, and it begins with a trip Disney took with friend, animator and fellow train aficionado Ward Kimball to Chicago. The Midwest city, as many know, is Disney’s birthplace, but in 1948 he and Kimball embarked on a vacation to that city’s railroad fair.
At the festival, they enjoyed not only locomotives, but also an Abraham Lincoln impersonator, and expansive grounds that featured small re-creations of a frontier town and a Native American village, elements that would eventually make their way to Disneyland. And while in Chicago, the duo stopped at what is now the Griffin Museum of Science & Industry, home to a re-creation of a turn-of-the-century city street.
By the time the trip had concluded, Disney’s vision of Disneyland had begun to take shape. Within days of returning to Los Angeles, Disney had written a memo capturing his ideas that would ultimately appear in Disneyland, including a train, a park and an assortment of vintage shops.
So perhaps it’s more accurate to say that, with Disneyland, it all started with a holiday to Chicago.
The museum’s exhibition, “The Happiest Place on Earth: The Disneyland Story,” is based on a similarly titled book from animation producer Don Hahn and theme park designer-turned-historian Christopher Merritt. Consider the museum demonstration a sort of greatest hits companion to the coffeetable-type tomb, which is an indispensable look at Disneyland’s history, a work that collects never-before-seen concept art and places a spotlight on many of the park’s lesser-known designers.
The exhibit and book coincide with Disneyland’s 70th anniversary. The former adds to and complements the museum’s mission of preserving the legacy of Walt Disney, showing the park patriarch as something of a conductor who built Disneyland with the help of creatives across Hollywood.
Spread across two lower-level galleries, and also including a short film from Hahn, one that places a large emphasis on that Chicago tour, the exhibit, running through May, unfolds as a sort of a walk around the park. Portions are dedicated to Disneyland lands past and present — the exhibit includes the defunct “Indian Village,” an aspect of Frontierland that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s — but rather than try to capture the park as a whole, the museum zeroes in on seldom displayed concept art from various Disneyland artisans.
The centerpiece of the primary gallery is a rarely resurrected penciled drawing of Fantasyland from Bruce Bushman, who created pre-opening concept art for the land inspired by Marvin Davis’ master plans. You’ll spy a small train coaster, a mini Ferris wheel and a circus area, complete with a large statue of a clown that would tower over guests. It’s starkly different from both the land’s Renaissance Faire-inspired beginnings and its European village look of today, but it’s also emblematic of how Disneyland didn’t emerge fully formed and was gradually iterated on prior to its July 1955 opening.
More Bushman art is shown elsewhere, in particular his drawing of Pirates of the Caribbean as a wax museum. In the mid-1950s, before it was decided the attraction would be a boat ride, it was envisioned as a walk-through experience complete with interior shops and a large battle scene. Hahn, who served as co-curator of the exhibit, in a tour of the museum’s artifacts notes that Bushman was working on “The Mickey Mouse Club” around the time he was also devising plans for Disneyland.
“There’s remnants of what the ride became,” Hahn says, pointing to the map’s depictions of tunnels and sandy areas with hidden loot. “There’s battles, and you have to cross over a rickety bridge over a swamp probably with alligators. This drawing, in particular, is really special, to see the original white pencil drawing. Again, Bruce Bushman, here’s a guy doing ‘Mickey Mouse Club’ sets, but also doing these profound things.”
Earlier, the exhibition pays special attention to prominent Southern California landscape architect Ruth Shellhorn. She was hired just four months before the park opened but is credited as refining its pedestrian flow and crafting the gardens that eased transitions between Disneyland’s central hub and its lands.
“We built the park as we went along,” reads a Shellhorn quote used in the book and the exhibit and pulled from Shellhorn’s archives at the UCLA Library. “I doubt if this procedure could have been followed successfully on any other project on Earth; but this was Disneyland, a sort of Fairyland, and Walt’s belief that the impossible was a simple order of the day so instilled this spirit in everyone that they never stopped to think that it couldn’t be done.”
Costume designer Renié Conley, who worked on films such as “The Big Fisherman” and “Cleopatra,” is also showcased. Her work for the front, Main Street areas of the park is shown, and it’s Victorian, regal and just ever-so-slightly fanciful. A yellow and white dress, for instance, feels full of movement, fit equally for a tea party or a dance.
A key component of the book and exhibit, says Hahn, was a desire to focus on some of the important contributors to Disneyland who may not be household names to fans of the park. “Let’s tell the human story of this,” Hahn says. “All the crazy people who worked on this in an unbelievable short amount of time. That attracted me.”
There’s also artwork shown for abandoned concepts, such as a never-built Chinese restaurant with a robotic host that was envisioned for Main Street, as well as alternative visions for the introductory land. Some early designs for It’s a Small World from beloved animator-turned-theme park desinger Marc Davis are in the exhibit. This is before it was decided to craft the ride in the look and tone of artist Mary Blair, and Davis’ small concepts possess a more refined look — a cartoon London, for instance, rather than a children’s playland.
Also rare: A small model of a vagabond’s carriage from Rolly Crump, who worked on the Haunted Mansion, the Enchanted Tiki Room and It’s a Small World, among other projects. Crump is responsible, for instance, for the whimsical facade of It’s a Small World. The carriage, with mystical, fortune telling-inspired designs, was created for the never built Museum of the Weird, which would have nestled alongside the Haunted Mansion. Crump’s son Chris says it may be one of the only surviving designs from that project.
Taken as a whole, the exhibit shows not just the beginnings of Disneyland, but how the park became an ever-evolving art project.
“It’s important,” says Hahn, when asked for this thoughts on why Disneyland has not only endured, but remains a pilgrimage for so many. Theme parks allow us to explore stories and fairy tales in a multidimensional space — an escape, yes, but also a reflection of the narratives that define a culture. And, adds Hahn, it’s a source of rejuvenation. “It’s not just kiddie stuff,” he says. “It’s important to our mental health.”
For when you go to Dinseyland, says Hahn, “you’re not thinking about your gas bill or your kid’s education or how you can’t afford to live paycheck to paycheck. It’s not cheap. It’s not a cheap day. But we still go because our hope is to get something there that we can’t get in everyday life. To me, that’s human regeneration, an ability to be inspired and get out of our head for a while.”
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