Across the park
Lost Lands and Never-Built Dreams
Walt thought of Disneyland as a place that would never be finished (Walt Disney Family Museum). The other side of that idea is a long list of places that were started and abandoned, or drawn and never started at all.
This chapter visits six of them. One was built and lasted a few summers. Two were streets meant to branch off Main Street. One was a Jules Verne harbor that lost out to Star Wars. The last two were whole new parks, planned for Long Beach and for the Disneyland parking lot, and given up in the early 1990s. Each one left something behind, sometimes in Anaheim and sometimes on the other side of the world.
Holidayland, 1957–1961
On June 16, 1957, Disneyland opened a land most guests never saw. Holidayland was nine acres on the western edge of the park, near where New Orleans Square stands today, with its own gate. It was built for company picnics and group outings, and it could hold 7,000 people (Wikipedia). The first plan had put it between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, under the name "Holiday Park" (Walt Disney Family Museum).
There was a softball diamond, horseshoe pits, a volleyball court and playgrounds. The centerpiece was a striped circus tent, left over from the Mickey Mouse Club Circus and billed as the world's largest candy-striped circus tent (Walt Disney Family Museum). Holidayland also sold beer, which the rest of Disneyland did not (Wikipedia). Herb Ryman drew a Christmas entrance for it with a 75-foot tree. It was never built (Walt Disney Family Museum).
It closed in September 1961. There was little shade, no lighting for evenings and too few restrooms, and few groups booked picnics in winter (Wikipedia; Walt Disney Family Museum). Its manager, Milt Albright, later said no single thing had killed it. The ground now holds the show buildings for Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion (Wikipedia).
Holiday Park left one more mark. Its planned site between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland had a mound of earth, which staff called Snow Hill. The museum tells how Walt suggested to Admiral Joe Fowler that they make some snow there for a toboggan ride. Snow Hill became the idea of Snow Mountain, and Snow Mountain became the Matterhorn. The museum, quoting Jason Surrell's book The Disney Mountains, records Walt's claim to it in two words: "My mountain" (Walt Disney Family Museum).
Liberty Street and Edison Square
In 1956 the studio announced a new street off the town square of Main Street. Liberty Street would recreate colonial America in about 1775, modeled on the Boston of Disney's film Johnny Tremain. It would hold a Hall of the Declaration of Independence, with scenes of the drafting, the signing and the ringing of the Liberty Bell, and a Hall of Presidents with every president on one stage. Beside it would be Edison Square, where a show would follow one family through the eras of electricity. A 1958 park map teased both (Attractions Magazine).
Neither was built. Disney could not find a corporate sponsor to pay for them, and the land they were meant for is backstage today (Attractions Magazine).
The ideas were too good to drop. The Lincoln figure became Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln at the 1964–65 New York World's Fair, and Edison Square's family became General Electric's Carousel of Progress, which came to Tomorrowland in 1967. In Florida, the Hall of Presidents opened in Liberty Square at Magic Kingdom in 1971, and the Franklin and Jefferson scenes reached Epcot's American Adventure in 1982 (Attractions Magazine).
Discovery Bay
In the 1970s Imagineer Tony Baxter led a team planning a new land on the far side of Frontierland, beside the Rivers of America. The name Discovery Bay became official in 1976. It was to be a harbor town of the 19th century as Jules Verne might have imagined it, a place of inventors and adventurers (Laughing Place).
The plans were lavish:
- Lost River Rapids, a raft ride past dinosaurs
- Spark Gap Loop, a roller coaster in a tower
- Professor Marvel's Gallery of Illusion, a rotating theater
- Mysterious Island, with Captain Nemo's Nautilus in the harbor
- A Fireworks Factory, a moving shooting gallery
- The airship Hyperion, flying guests to a lost city, based on Disney's 1974 film The Island at the Top of the World
Only one piece was built: Big Thunder Mountain, in 1979. The rest was cancelled. The Island at the Top of the World had failed in theaters, Epcot and Tokyo Disneyland were costing more than planned, and after Star Wars the public wanted spaceships, not airships (Laughing Place). Galaxy's Edge now stands on much of the ground Discovery Bay would have used.
Discovery Bay scattered across the world. Professor Marvel became the Dreamfinder of Epcot's Journey into Imagination, and one of his creatures became Figment. Baxter put the Nautilus and the Hyperion into Discoveryland at Disneyland Paris. Mysterious Island found a home in Tokyo DisneySea (Laughing Place).
Port Disney and WestCOT
By 1990 Disney wanted a second park in Southern California, and it planned two at once.
Port Disney, Long Beach
On July 31, 1990, Disney unveiled Port Disney, a 443-acre resort on Queensway Bay in Long Beach, beside the Queen Mary Spruce Goose. Its heart was DisneySea, an ocean park built around Oceana, a cluster of bubble-shaped buildings holding an oceanarium. There would be a Mysterious Island, a boardwalk and a Caribbean lagoon with a shark-cage dive. The price was about $2 billion (Wikipedia).
It needed fill in the ocean, first 250 acres and then 85, and review by 27 government agencies, which Disney said could cost $70 million on its own. Neighbors objected, and the state bill the project needed stalled. In December 1991 Disney gave it up and chose Anaheim instead. DisneySea did not die. Some of its ideas became Tokyo DisneySea, which opened in 2001 (Wikipedia).
WestCOT, Anaheim
The Anaheim plan, announced in 1991, was WestCOT, a West Coast cousin of Florida's EPCOT Center, to be built on the Disneyland parking lot. Its centerpiece was Spacestation Earth, a 300-foot golden version of EPCOT's white sphere. World Showcase was regrouped into "Four Corners of the World" instead of single countries, and a hotel was planned in the style of Florida's Grand Floridian. The estimate came close to $3 billion (Wikipedia).
It was cancelled in 1995. The land was hard to buy, and neighbors worried about light and the height of the sphere. Disney was also losing money on its new park outside Paris. After the cancellation, chief executive Michael Eisner led a three-day retreat of executives in Aspen, Colorado. The idea that came out of it was a park about California itself. Disney California Adventure opened on WestCOT's site in 2001 (Wikipedia). Its story begins in the next chapters.
At a glance
| Project | Planned or open | Where | What happened | What it became |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holidayland | Open Jun 16, 1957–Sep 1961 | West edge of the park | Closed: no shade, lights or enough restrooms | Site of the Pirates and Mansion show buildings |
| Liberty Street | Announced 1956 | Off Main Street's town square | No sponsor found | Hall of Presidents (Florida, 1971); Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln |
| Edison Square | Teased 1958 | Beside Liberty Street | No sponsor found | Carousel of Progress (1964 fair, then Tomorrowland 1967) |
| Discovery Bay | Named 1976 | Beside the Rivers of America | Cancelled; only Big Thunder built | Discoveryland in Paris, Figment, Mysterious Island in Tokyo |
| Port Disney / DisneySea | Unveiled Jul 31, 1990 | Long Beach | Dropped December 1991 | Tokyo DisneySea (2001) |
| WestCOT | Announced 1991 | Disneyland parking lot | Cancelled 1995 | Disney California Adventure (2001) |
Fun facts: lost and never-built
- Holidayland sold beer, which no other part of Disneyland did at the time (Wikipedia).
- Holidayland could hold 7,000 guests at a time (Wikipedia).
- A May 1957 cast-member newsletter joked that picnickers would have to bring their own ants (Walt Disney Family Museum).
- The Matterhorn grew out of a mound of earth called Snow Hill, on the site first planned for Holidayland (Walt Disney Family Museum).
- Liberty Street was modeled on the Boston of Disney's film Johnny Tremain (Attractions Magazine).
- Big Thunder Mountain is the only part of Discovery Bay that was ever built (Laughing Place).
- Figment, the purple dragon of Epcot, descends from a Discovery Bay character named Professor Marvel (Laughing Place).
- Port Disney would have needed approval from 27 government agencies (Wikipedia).
- WestCOT's golden sphere would have stood 300 feet tall (Wikipedia).
- Disney California Adventure was born at a three-day executive retreat in Aspen, Colorado, after WestCOT died (Wikipedia).
Quotes
"Liberty Street will be Johnny Tremain's Boston of about 1775."
— Walt Disney (Attractions Magazine)
"It wasn't any one thing that killed Holidayland."
— Milt Albright, Holidayland's manager (Wikipedia)
"…my inability to muster the support that I needed."
— David Malmuth, Disney project director, on why Port Disney failed (Wikipedia)