Two to Travel's Blasts from the Past: SoCal Trip: Disneyland

11 March 1985

Disneyland will never be completed.
It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.

Walt Disney

Can anyone go to Southern California and not visit Disneyland? Of course not. We were no exception and spent a delightful day at the theme park. It was a day that frequently brought out the inner child in us. We didn’t see Mickey and Minnie on that occasion, but made up for that oversight on later trips that took us to Disney World in Florida.

I have a few notes in my photo album that I will share here … I’m afraid I did not indicate the source of the information.

The idea for Disneyland was one that had simmered in Walt’s mind for years before the park became a reality. He used to tell a story about how, on Saturdays (Daddy’s Day) he would take his two daughters to amusement parks and playgrounds. He was always disappointed because, “while they were on the merry-go-round riding forty times or something, I’d be sitting there trying to figure out what I could do.”

Walt was a man who was always looking for a new challenge, and he soon set to work on a different kind of amusement park … one where parents and children together could forget their everyday cares and lose themselves in adventure and fantasy. His “magical little park,” 20 years later, became the Magic Kingdom. It had no precedent — nowhere in the world at the time could you find the same unique blend of entertainment and information. The challenge of turning 160 acres (64 hectares) of dusty orange groves into the happiest place on earth was met with unparalleled success, largely because, as Walt often said, “Disneyland is a labor of love.”

“To all who come to this happy place: welcome. Disneyland is your land.” These words, delivered by Walt Disney on July 17, 1955, at the opening of Disneyland, convey as much meaning today as they did then. As Walt intended from the first, “it will give meaning to the pleasure of the children — and pleasure to the experience of adults.”

And now … onto images from our day at Disneyland.