How Walt Disney Really Turned His Dreams Into A Reality And Launched The World’s First Amusement Park
Walt Disney once said, “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” And the man himself undoubtedly lived up to this motto.
The world-renowned producer, showman, and entrepreneur was born on December 5, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois.
But, he spent much of his adolescent life in Missouri– where he worked as a newspaper route boy, began studying the art of cartooning, and would later draw inspiration for Main Street, USA, in Disneyland.
Then, in 1917, the Disney family moved back to Chicago, and Walt entered McKinley High School.
There, as a teen, he continued cultivating his eye for the arts by delving into photography, drawing for the school newspaper, and studying cartooning.
Walt’s initial dream was to be hired as a newspaper cartoonist. But, World War I delayed his plans after he had to work as an ambulance driver in France and Germany for the American Red Cross.
Nonetheless, once Walt returned to the states in 1919, he began taking on part-time gigs as a draftsman and inker for commercial art studios and met another young artist named Ub Iwerks.
Walt’s collaboration with Ub was instrumental to his early career success.
The pair launched their own studio in 1922, created two-minute advertising films using animations, and distributed the shorts to local movie theaters.
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It was around this time that they also created animated cartoon series known as Laugh-O-Grams as well as a pilot film combining animation and live action known as Alice in Cartoonland.
Unfortunately, though, the young producers were cheated by a New York film distributor and had to file for bankruptcy in 1923. Like Walt always said, though, “it is kind of fun to do the impossible.”
So, he decided to pursue his dreams full-throttle and made the cross-country move to California. There, Walt and his brother-turned-business manager, Roy, reopened a studio in Hollywood and saw immense success.
By 1927, Walt created his most famous character ever, Mickey– a joyful and mischievous mouse. Mickey’s popularity quickly skyrocketed, and Walt realized that the general public had an affinity for fantasy characters with human-like personalities.
This prompted him to create characters such as Donald Duck, Pluto, and Goofy, while also working on other legendary projects such as The Three Little Pigs.
But, nothing could have prepared Walt for the fame that would come after he began working on feature-length films.
His first, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which premiered in 1937, was a hit among film critics, adults, and children across the nation.
Up to that point, animation’s validity had also been questioned when used for longer-length films. Nonetheless, Walt proved the naysayers wrong and solidified animation as a high-value film category.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, he created many of the legendary films Disney fans still love today, including Seal Island (1948), Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953).
Still, Walt Disney was a man known to never sit still. And in the early 1950s, he conceptualized the idea for a world-class amusement park known as Disneyland.
According to The Henry Ford Museum, Walt claimed his two daughters sparked the idea. He had been watching them having a blast on the carousel at Griffith Park in L.A., and began to wonder what a friendly, clean, and safe place for families to have fun might look like.
And from that moment on, Walt was dedicated to making his vision of Disneyland a reality. In 1952, he liquidated some of his longest-held assets, including his vacation home, and took out one hundred thousand dollars against his life insurance policy.
Walt even sold off the rights to his own name in hopes of acquiring extra funds.
And with proceeds, he was able to begin a new venture known as WED Enterprises– aptly titled after his full name, Walter Elias Disney.
Walt originally conceptualized Disneyland as being called Mickey Mouse Village. But, while planning out the park, he realized that WED Enterprises’ designers, artists, and engineers were constructing an entire world aside from just the Mickey Mouse characters.
So, for the first time, Walt began to envision a theme park with segmented regions, such as Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, and Frontierland.
This opened up a world of new possibilities that, unfortunately, also came with a massive price tag. Thus, WED Enterprises was forced to cut a deal with ABC.
In return for Walt creating a one-hour weekly television series for the TV network, ABC provided Walt with five million dollars to finish his park construction.
And amazingly, even though park construction began on July 22, 1954, it was completed in under one year.
The day that Disneyland debuted in Anaheim, California– July 17, 1955– was a scorching one. But, the weather did not deter the public from showing up to experience the world’s first amusement park.
And over that first year, a whopping 3.6 million people ended up visiting the park– with patronage exponentially growing ever since.
Now, Disneyland welcomes 18 million visitors every single calendar year– making it the second most visited theme park in the world.
And, if you are wondering what the first is, it is Disney World in Florida– which welcomes a whopping 58 million adults and children annually.
In fact, Walt’s brilliant theme park venture eventually led to the launching of twelve Disney parks across the world.
There are now Disneylands in Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and more.
And if you are wondering just how much money Walt Disney was worth before he sadly passed away in December of 1966, his net worth– adjusted for inflation– was about $1.2 billion.
Not to mention, the Walt Disney Company’s value is also estimated to be about $130 billion. That’s a lot of Mickey ears!
It is without a doubt that Walt Disney’s creativity and imagination pushed him to break newer ground than ever before in both the entertainment and industrial industries.
However, Walt’s legacy has continued to thrive for so long because of his dedication to bringing joy and positivity to fans of all ages around the globe.
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