Every Disney theme park has its share of interesting history, but the Magic Kingdom, the first park at Walt Disney World, has a particularly interesting narrative. From finding the right spot to house Disney’s second theme park to the addition of both original rides and adapted ones to other major occurrences, there’s a lot to know about what’s happened with the Magic Kingdom over the course of almost sixty years.
Here are years that jumped out as momentous to me, and the reasons I think so.
1959
Image: Disney
Market surveys showed that only 5% of Disneyland’s visitors came from east of the Mississippi River, even though 75% of the United States lived there. Walt also had issues with the businesses that had sprung up around Disneyland and wished to control a bigger space of the new project. Disney hired Economic Research Associates, a private consultancy, to look for a good location for Walt’s second theme park. One of the suggested sites was the then-unknown city of Orlando, Florida.
1963
Image: Disney
Roy O. Disney and a lawyer proposed the purchase of large swathes of land in Florida. After it was suggested to him, Walt visited Florida and decided on Orlando over another city in Florida named Ocala. Disney used dummy corporations to acquire the land so that Disney World would stay secret and so the land wouldn’t suddenly become extremely expensive.
1966
Image: Disney
Walt Disney died of lung cancer years before the park would open. Roy Disney postponed his retirement to make the Orlando park a reality, and renamed the resort from Disney World to Walt Disney World in his brother’s honor.
1971
Image: Disney
The Magic Kingdom’s opening day was October 1, 1971, and the park welcomed over ten thousand attendees. Attractions that premiered that day included some rides that would quickly be forgotten by most along with classics like It’s A Small World, The Haunted Mansion, Dumbo The Flying Elephant, and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Roy O. Disney ran a dedication ceremony for The Magic Kingdom on October 23. Sadly, Roy died of a cerebral hemorrhage only two months after Disney World opened on December 20th, 1971. Following his passing, Don Tatum took control of Disney World as the chairman, and Esmond Cardon “Card” Walker served as president.
1973
Image: Disney
There were a fair amount of new attractions that opened in 1973 at the Magic Kingdom, but probably the most significant one was Pirates of the Caribbean’s introduction to Orlando (by popular demand due its previous success at Disneyland). Its popularity there and at the other Disney parks obviously sparked a major movie franchise, the most successful series ever based on a theme park attraction.
1975
Image: Disney
Space travel was of great interest to Americans in the mid-70s, so Space Mountain launched in the Magic Kingdom on January 15th, 1975. It was a great addition to the park for thrill-seekers who found other attractions at Walt Disney World too tame. It premiered in Orlando first; Space Mountain didn’t arrive in Disneyland until two years later in 1977. Also in 1975, on June 6, America on Parade debuted to honor the United States’ upcoming Bicentennial.
1976
Not a lot happened in 1976 except for one major milestone: a 13 year-old girl from Virginia named Susan Brummer became Disney World’s fifty-millionth attendee.
1980
November 8th marked the opening of the Magic Kingdom’s second roller coaster, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a year after the same attraction debuted at Disneyland.
1988
Image: Disney
After a number of years of inactivity at the Magic Kingdom, the park received renewed attention with Mickey’s Birthdayland, a section of the Magic Kingdom devoted to celebrating Mickey Mouse’s sixtieth anniversary. It included attractions such Mickey’s House, Mickey’s Playground, and Grandma’ Duck’s Petting farm, tents where you can spend time with the Mickey Mouse cast, and live shows like the very popular Minnie’s Surprise Birthday Party. Mickey’s Birthdayland stuck around in different forms after 1988 (Mickey’s Starland, Mickey’s Toyland and Mickey’s Toontown Fair) until it was finally closed in 2011 to build an extension on to Fantasyland.
1992
Image: Disney
Twelve years after its last major attraction, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Magic Kingdom wowed Disney fans with Splash Mountain, which opened July 17 and had a dedication ceremony on October 2.
1994
Tomorrowland, which was starting to look extremely dated, received a major upgrade. It’s extremely easy for science fiction to stop feeling relevant; obviously we know now that the future will be nothing like what it was portrayed as in Star Trek in the 1960s. To avoid that problem in the future the Imagineers shifted to using a more general futuristic design for Tomorrowland.
1998
To fit in characters from recent very successful animated movies, Walt Disney World replaced Tropical Serenade with The Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management), which featuring Iago from Aladdin and Zazu from The Lion King.
2005
Image: Disney
After the massive success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Disney’s Imagineers were swayed to adjust the ride that inspired it so that it would match the film. Audio-Animatronics of the Johnny Depp Captain Jack Sparrow were added to the attraction.
2007
Arguably the last major change to the Magic Kingdom came in 2007, when the Haunted Mansion went through a major overhaul. The biggest difference was that the ghost ride story, not originally an official part of the attraction, was added to the canon!
2014
Image: Disney
2014, of course, has seen the completion of the New Fantasyland expansion with the opening of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train roller coaster. The area has been completely transformed, with the diamond mine that sits at the heart of the coaster becoming New Fantasyland’s centerpiece.
We’re sure to have many more exciting years as time rolls on. The above list is made up of ones that struck me as particularly fascinating; you might have other ideas. Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below!
