It is no secret that the opening of Disneyland in July 1955 had unleashed the tourism craze that lasted well into the early 1970's. It's not only evident with establishing backwater towns, such as Anaheim, Calif. and Orlando, Fla. as major tourist hubs and even cultural epicenters. Granted, Orlando was relatively known for being one of the largest cities in Central Florida before Walt Disney announced his intentions to build a futuristic city and theme park resort, whereas Anaheim was just another town in the groves of Orange County when Disney selected the site for his massive playground, but the Mouse's occupancy is a certain route to rapid expansion. After Disneyland opened, Walt was disturbed by the magical effect his park had on the surrounding area where miles and miles of nightclubs, motels, bars, restaurants, and suburbs quickly popped up, which led him to factor in the purchase of land adjacent to any future development.
There were many factors that contributed to the rapid growth of Orange County in the 1950's, Disneyland being a major one, but also the network of highways driven by a growing consumer culture and the newfound freedom ignited by the automobile which offered families a standard of life that had not been accessible to most Americans in the past. In 1956 and 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower, who was impressed with the efficiency of the Autobahn system in Germany during WWII, wanted something similar for the United States, which culminated in the Interstate Highway Act.
With the instantaneous success of Disneyland, it was apparent that the formula could be applied to other parts of the country and even internationally. While Walt and Disney management were getting constant offers to build a second Disneyland, a falling out between the construction manager, C.V. Wood, and Disney had resulted in Wood's termination from the company.
Wood established Marco Engineering and tried to replicate the Disneyland formula on three occasions. The first attempt was a Colorado theme park called Magic Mountain (yes, there was a Magic Mountain outside of California), where guests were treated to various experiences similar to the park in Anaheim. For example, guests were ushered through an old town square and railroad depot before choosing to visit the fairy-tale section, the Old West frontier town, or the world of tomorrow. Sounds familiar?
After it opened in the late 1950's, it was losing money and it shut down in 1960. However, this didn't deter Wood from looking east to New England for his next attempt.
In 1959, Pleasure Island debuted in Wakefield, Massachusetts, and it was marketed as the "Disneyland of the Northeast". Even though it was operated on a seasonal basis to account for the harsh New England winters, it was reportedly one of the most expensive investments in a tourist attraction in the state.
Pleasure Island closed after the 1969 season and the remains of the attraction would be left behind, only to be either stolen and even destroyed by vandals or fall into a state of extreme disrepair.
Meanwhile, Wood thought New York City would be a wonderful location for a Disneyland-style theme park. After all, New York had/has Coney Island, which is the antithesis of Disneyland, and it needed a Disneyland of sorts. Focusing in on periods of American history with attention to geographical nuances was the basis for Freedomland USA. In 1960, Freedomland opened and was featured on the Ed Sullivan Show as the "Disneyland of the East Coast". It was popular and beloved by many, including people in my family, but it was unfortunately another one of Wood's failed attempts to replicate the Disney magic. However, this is not the last I'll be writing about C.V. Wood, mark my words.
As early as 1959, Disney knew Florida was a great place to expand his empire, so he appealed to local businesses, including the Recreation Corporation of America.
Disney undoubtedly inspired Pirate World, a piracy-themed theme park in Dania (just north of Miami), Florida. Pirate World opened in April 1967, just four-and-a-half years before Walt Disney World, and was themed to seven eras of piracy.
Now, we've heard the story about the Pirates of the Caribbean being snubbed from the guest list of WDW's Opening Day attractions due to the redundancy of theming anything related to piracy in a state where piracy is no different than cowboys out here in the Southwest, but imagine that a company that built small-scale theme parks would be consulting the face of theme park success. To me, that's humorous.
Though, Walt understandably didn't like the cost of dealing with the Recreation Corporation of America and he chose to continue with the Florida Project with WED. At any rate, Walt Disney World jeopardized Pirate World in 1971 and Pirate World closed down in 1975.
Speaking of localized theme parks, I live in the Southwestern United States where the majority of our history is based on the rugged, frontier spirit of the Old West. Places like Phoenix, Tucson, Tombstone, Bisbee, Jerome, Prescott, Calico, Golden, El Paso, Santa Fe, Silverton, and Denver are familiar and part of our vernacular.
Here in Arizona, we had a Disneyland-style theme park on the border between Phoenix and Tempe. Named Legend City, this attraction was inspired by Disneyland and had included an 1890's Main Street, a Mexican Village, an Indian Village, and a Boom Town as well as a Modern Section (basically a Tomorrowland) and a kiddie park (basically a copy of Fantasyland). It was designed by a Mesa entrepreneur who went to Arizona State University (like yours truly) and one of the designers also reportedly did some work with the Disney Company.
Entertaining guests, hometown favorites Wallace and Ladmo were weekend staples and on occasion, their own television show would be broadcast from the park. My grandparents went there and my parents went there. I've been to the site of the former park, but since Legend City operated from 1963 until 1983, I wasn't able to visit the park. In fact, my father's family went there on one of the last days it operated because of my Grandma's job.
The point is that Disneyland's success fueled the growth of the tourism industry and had inspired several theme parks, most of which are instantly recognized. In 1955, Angus Wynne took a trip to Disneyland and after being impressed, he imported the idea of a clean, ordered, themed attraction back to his native Texas where he began working on what became Six Flags Over Texas. Six Flags opened as a tribute to Texan history in August 1961, but it spawned a chain of theme parks across the United States and abroad.
The major difference was the pricing model. Instead of purchasing ticket books with coupons for the rides, the pricing model was to charge general admission, which included all attractions. In fact, the Magic Mountain theme park in California opened in 1971 with that payment system (Six Flags would acquire Magic Mountain in 1979).
An Oklahoma man who went to Disneyland in 1955 had the same idea as Wynne and bought a series of buildings left over from Oklahoma State's Bicentennial in 1958 to create a western theme park called Frontier City.
Meanwhile, an Orange County roadside attraction called Knott's Berry Farm was already known for their chicken dinners, pies, and an authentic recreation of an Old West ghost town that entertained hungry patrons by the time Disneyland opened. Walter Knott had a friendly relationship with Walt Disney as they were pretty much neighbors.
Walter added a narrow-gauge railroad circling the property and Walt took a trip to see the train himself. In 1968, Walter fenced off the park and started charging admission, thus becoming a bona fide theme park in the process.
Following the model set up by Disney, Universal Studios in Hollywood became a theme park the same year Sea World opened in San Diego (1964).
Speaking of Southern Californian tourism, CBS set up a nautical theme park in Santa Monica on a pier to rival Disneyland. Upon opening in 1958, it was an immediate success, but unfortunately problems plagued the park through the 1960's and it shut down permanently in late 1967.
As per the similarities between the POP and Disneyland, they both had dark rides, kiddie rides, a house of the future, a sky ride, a train, walk-thrus, a trip to Mars, and a car ride on a highway-like track.
Nara Dreamland was the name of a Japanese theme park that operated for around forty-five years. Designed similarly to Walt Disney's original Magic Kingdom with various lands gathered around a town square, Nara Dreamland had a strange history. So the story goes that a Japanese businessman had traveled to the United States in the late-1950's and after seeing now successful the then-recently opened Disneyland, he contacted Walt with the intent of bringing the Disney theme park brand overseas. Construction was underway and it looked like Japan was going to receive its own Disneyland...until the businessman had a disagreement over the licensing fees with Disney and Disney dropped out of the project. Meanwhile, the park was nearing completion and the decision was made to open it as Nara Dreamland in 1961.
Since it opened in 1961, Nara Dreamland had resembled the Disneyland of yesteryear. Like the original, they had a Matterhorn-style bobsled roller coaster, an inviting castle conjured up from Bavarian fairy tales, a boat ride through exotic jungles, a town square, a sky ride, and a unique take on Frontierland called Ancestor Land. Of course, they added rides over time, but it wasn't enough when in 1983, Disney opened their own Japanese theme park in Chiba (just east of Tokyo). Ironically, this signaled the end of Nara Dreamland and after years of rising operating costs and little growth in attendance, they shut down the park in 2006. In the years since it closed, it became one of the most popular abandoned places in Japan for urban explorers.
Pixieland was an Oregon kiddie park that opened in 1969 and operated for four seasons before closing in 1973. This was based on Disneyland's Fantasyland section and was done on a tighter budget.
King's Island had the honor of being conceptualized by the pencil of Bruce Bushman, who worked on Disneyland's design from 1953 until he quit in 1956. The International Street area is based exactly on Main Street USA and its planned International Street expansion in the mid-1950's.
Disney advisers reportedly consulted on the early concepts for an Iowa theme park called Adventureland that opened in 1974. In fact, many of the attractions are based on Disneyland rides, such as the Haunted Mansion, the Pirates of the Caribbean, the Autopia, the Jungle Cruise, and even Space Mountain as well as similarly themed areas, such as an alpine-Bavarian village, a New Orleans-themed area, a Wild West ghost town, and an 1890's Midwestern town square.
Europa Park, which is one of the only major European theme parks to be influenced by Disneyland (not counting Disneyland Paris, obviously), opened in 1975. Unfortunately, a fire in May 2018 had devastated their copycat Pirates ride, known as the Pirates in Bavatia, as well as the Scandinavian and Dutch sections of the park. European fairy-tales and folklore are a major part of the park.
What happened to this craze?
In October 1973, there was a massive oil embargo that lasted through the spring of 1974 and this caused a decline in tourism that had ended the 18 years of a travel boom. However, two years prior had seen the opening of Walt Disney World, which spurred Central Florida to become of the major tourism hubs in the United States. Sea World opened their Orlando theme park in December 1973, on the same exact day that the Pirates ride opened at the nearby Magic Kingdom. Disney World made Central Florida grow and parks, such as Circus World, Wet n' Wild, and later Universal, came to the swamps of Florida.
No comments:
Post a Comment