Disneyland Park is a theme park located in Anaheim, California, owned and operated by the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts division of The Walt Disney Company. Originally, and still often colloquially, called Disneyland, it was dedicated with a televised press preview on July 17, 1955, and opened to the general public on July 18, 1955. Disneyland holds the distinction of being the only theme park to be designed and built under the direct supervision of Walt Disney himself. In 1998, the theme park was re-branded "Disneyland Park" to distinguish it from the larger Disneyland Resort complex.
Disneyland has the most cumulative attendance of any theme park in the world, with close to 600 million guests since July 18, 1955. In 2009, 15.9 million people visited the park making it the second most visited park in the world during that calendar year.
"To all who come to this happy place: -Welcome- Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past ... and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America ... with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world."
—Walter E. Disney, July 17, 1955 4:43pm
The concept for Disneyland began one Sunday, when Walt Disney was visiting Griffith Park with his daughters Diane and Sharon. While watching his daughters 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. His dream would lie dormant for many years. Walt Disney also may have been influenced by his father's memories of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago (his father worked at the Exposition). The Midway Plaisance there included a set of attractions representing various countries from around the world and others representing various time periods of man; it also included many rides including the first Ferris wheel, a "sky" ride, a passenger train that circled the perimeter, and a Wild West Show. Although the 1893 World's Fair was held across one summer in Chicago, the Disneyland of 60 years later bears some striking resemblances to it.
While many people wrote letters to Walt Disney about visiting the Disney Studio, he realized that a functional movie studio had little to offer to the visiting fans. This began to foster ideas of building a site near his Burbank studios for tourists to visit. His ideas then evolved to a small play park with a boat ride and other themed areas. Walt's initial concept, his "Mickey Mouse Park", started with an 8-acre (3.2 ha) plot across Riverside Drive. Walt started to visit other parks for inspiration and ideas, including Tivoli Gardens, Greenfield Village, The Efteling, Tilburg , Playland, and Children's Fairyland. He started his designers working on concepts, but these would grow into a project much larger than could be contained in 8 acres (3.2 ha).
Walt hired a consultant, Harrison Price from Stanford Research Institute, to gauge the proper area to locate the theme park based on the area's potential growth. With the report from Price, Disney acquired 160 acres (65 ha) of orange groves and walnut trees in Anaheim, southeast of Los Angeles in neighboring Orange County.
Difficulties in obtaining funding prompted Disney to investigate new methods of fundraising. He decided to use television to get the ideas into people's homes, and so he created a show named Disneyland which was broadcast on the then-fledgling ABC television network. In return, the network agreed to help finance the new park. For the first five years of its operation, Disneyland was owned by Disneyland, Inc., which was jointly owned by Walt Disney Productions, Walt Disney, Western Publishing and ABC In 1960 Walt Disney Productions purchased ABC's share (it had earlier bought out Western Publishing and Walt Disney). In addition, many of the shops on Main Street, U.S.A. were owned and operated by other companies who rented space from Disney.
Construction began on July 16, 1954 and would cost USD$ 17 million to complete, and was opened exactly one year and one day later. U.S. Route 101 (later Interstate 5) was under construction at the same time just to the north of the site; in preparation for the traffic which Disneyland was expected to bring, two more lanes were added to the freeway even before the park was finished.
Disneyland Park was opened to the public on July 18, 1955 with only 20 attractions. However, a special "International Press Preview" event was held on Sunday, July 17, 1955, which was only open to invited guests and the media. The Special Sunday events, including the dedication, were televised nationwide and anchored by three of Walt Disney's friends from Hollywood: Art Linkletter, Bob Cummings, and Ronald Reagan. ABC broadcast the event live on its network; at the time, it was one of the largest and most complex live broadcasts ever.
The event did not go smoothly. The park was overcrowded as the by-invitation-only affair was plagued with counterfeit tickets. Only 11,000 people were expected to show up, but a staggering 28,154 was the eventual population. Movie stars and other famous figures scheduled to come every two hours showed up all at once. All major roads nearby were empty. The temperature was an unusually high 101 °F (38 °C), and a plumbers' strike left many of the park's drinking fountains dry. Disney was given a choice of having working fountains or running toilets and he chose the latter.
This, however, generated negative publicity since Pepsi sponsored the park's opening; disappointed guests believed the inoperable fountains were a cynical way to sell soda. The asphalt that had been poured just that morning was so soft that ladies' high-heeled shoes sank into it. Vendors ran out of food. A gas leak in Fantasyland caused Adventureland, Frontierland, and Fantasyland to close for the afternoon. Some parents were seen throwing their children over the shoulders of crowds to get them onto rides such as the King Arthur Carrousel.
The park got such bad press for the "International Press Preview" that Walt Disney invited attendees back for a private "second day" to experience Disneyland properly. In later years Walt and his 1955 executives referred to July 17, 1955 as "Black Sunday". Today, cast members wear pin badges on July 17 in celebration of the park's anniversary, stating how many years it has been since the 1955 opening. But for the first decade or so, Disney officially stated that opening day was on July 18, 1955 and celebrated the 18th as its Anniversary. For example, a 1967 Disneyland press release referred to July 17, 1955, as "Dedication Day" and not "Opening Day."
On Opening Day, Monday July 18, crowds started to gather in line as early as 2 a.m., and the first person to buy a ticket and enter the park was David MacPherson with admission ticket number 2, as Roy O. Disney arranged to pre-purchase ticket number 1 from Curtis Lineberry, the manager of admissions. Walt Disney had an official photo taken with two children, Christine Vess Watkins (age 5 in 1955) and Michael Schwartner (age 7 in 1955); the photo of the three carries an inaccurate caption identifying the children as the first two guests of Disneyland. Watkins and Schwartner both received lifetime passes to Disneyland that day, and MacPherson was awarded one shortly thereafter, which was later expanded to every single Disney-owned park in the world. Approximately 50,000 guests attended the Monday Opening day.
In September 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev spent thirteen days in the United States. On his visit Khrushchev had two requests: to visit Disneyland and to meet John Wayne, Hollywood's top box-office draw. Due to the Cold War tension and security concerns, he was famously denied an excursion to Disneyland. The Shah of Iran and Empress Farah were invited to Disneyland by Walt Disney in early 1960s.
In the late 1990s, work began to expand on the one-park, one-hotel property. Disneyland Park, the Disneyland Hotel and the site of the original parking lot as well as acquired surrounding properties were earmarked to become part of a greater vacation resort development. The new components of this resort were to be another theme park, Disney's California Adventure Park; a shopping, dining and entertainment complex, Downtown Disney; a remodeled Disneyland Hotel; Disney's Grand Californian Hotel; and the acquisition of the Pan Pacific Hotel (later to be remodeled and renamed Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel). Because the existing parking lot (south of Disneyland) was built upon by these projects, the six-level 10,250 space "Mickey and Friends" parking structure was constructed in the northwest corner of the property, at the time of its completion in 2000, it was the largest parking structure in the United States.
The park's management team during the mid-1990s was a source of controversy among Disneyland fans and employees. In an effort to boost profits, various changes began by then-executives Cynthia Harriss and Paul Pressler. While their actions provided a short-term increase in shareholder returns, they drew widespread criticism from employees and guests alike for the lack of foresight. With the retail background of Harriss and Pressler, Disneyland's focus gradually shifted from attractions to merchandising. Outside consultants McKinsey & Co were also brought in to help streamline operations, which resulted in many changes and cutbacks. After nearly a decade of deferred maintenance, Walt Disney's original theme park was showing visible signs of neglect. Fans of the park decried the perceived decline in customer value and park quality and rallied for the dismissal of the management team.
Matt Ouimet, formerly the president of the Disney Cruise Line, was promoted to assume leadership of the Disneyland Resort in late 2003. Shortly afterward, he selected Greg Emmer as Senior Vice President of Operations. Emmer is a long-time Disney cast member who had worked at Disneyland in his youth prior to moving to Florida and holding multiple executive leadership positions at the Walt Disney World Resort. Ouimet quickly set about reversing certain trends, especially with regards to cosmetic maintenance and a return to the original infrastructure maintenance schedule, in hopes of restoring the safety record of the past. Much like Walt Disney himself, Ouimet and Emmer could often be seen walking the park during business hours with members of their respective staff. They wore cast member name badges, stood in line for attractions and welcomed comments from guests.
The "Happiest Homecoming on Earth" was an eighteen-month-long celebration (held through 2005 and 2006) of the 50th anniversary of the Disneyland theme park, which opened on July 18, 1955. The Happiest Celebration on Earth commemorated fifty years of Disney theme parks, and celebrated Disneyland's milestone throughout Disney parks all over the globe. In 2004, the park undertook a number of major renovation projects in preparation for its fiftieth anniversary celebration.
Many classic attractions were restored, notably Space Mountain, Jungle Cruise, the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room, also Attractions that had been in the park on opening day in 1955 had one ride vehicle painted Gold, and there were Golden Mickey Ears throughout the Park. The 50th Anniversary celebration started on May 5, 2005 (To play on the 5-5-05 date) and ended on September 30, 2006 to be replaced by the Disney Parks "Year of a Million Dreams" celebration, which actually lasted 27 months and ended on December 31, 2008.
Starting on the 1st of January, 2010, Disney Parks hosted the Give a Day, Get a Disney Day volunteer program in which Disney encouraged people of all ages to volunteer with a participating Disney Charity and receive a free Disney Day at either the Disneyland Resort in California or the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. On March 9, 2010, Disney announced that it has reached its goal of one million volunteers and ended the promotion to anyone who had not yet registered and signed up for a specific volunteer situation.
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