Walt Disney dreamed of creating a new kind of amusement park. He was tired of gaudy, dirty carnivals. He wanted to build a park that families could enjoy together, where the problems of the real world could be left behind.
Disney’s first idea was to build a small eight-acre park next to his movie studio in Burbank, California. It would feature a train, Pony rides, and statues of his famous cartoon characters. He imagined that it would be a pleasant place for his employees and their families to spend weekends. But his plans grew and grew. It soon became clear that eight acres would not nearly accommodate all that Walt had in mind, In the early 1950s he borrowed money to purchase 180 acres of orange groves in Anaheim, California. He then began to build the most incredible entertainment center that had ever been conceived. He called it Disneyland.
Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955. At the dedication Walt Disney said, “I don’t want the public to see the world they live in when they are in the park. I want them to feel they are in another world.” Those words have been the Disneyland philosophy ever since. The park has grown and changed, but Wait Disney’s guiding vision has not. Disneyland is not just a re-creation of other times and other places. The real world is truly kept outside the gates. Perhaps one employee best summed up the essence of Disneyland when, speaking of the park’s turn-of –the-century main street, he said, “This is what Main Street should have been .like”