For many fans, Disney Parks are as well known for the projects that didn’t come to fruition as the ones that did. We’re fascinated by closed attractions, forgotten concepts, and plans that simply never made it off the drawing board. That’s why Theme Park Tourist set out to recall and record the spectacular, never-built parks, attractions, and lands that – for one reason or another – aren’t around today.
That’s why our Possibilityland series is here. Over the years, we’ve explored the mystical Beastly Kingdom once planned for Disney’s Animal Kingdom, toured the Disney-MGM Studios’ lost Muppet Studios, summitted Disney’s never-built “Mountains,” been launched into the future in Tomorrowland 2055, and many more in our In-Depth Collections Library. But today, we’ll step into the most inventive lost land ever planned for Disney Parks.
In the 1970s, Walt Disney Imagineers officially announced a stunning new area to join Disneyland’s seven – an extension of Walt’s love of Americana and the impossible fantasy environments that only Disney’s Imagineers could create, Discovery Bay would’ve been the flagship land of Disney’s theme park empire. The gorgeous, thoughtful, brilliant concepts of Discovery Bay would’ve easily been one of the strongest lands at any Disney Park, even unto today. But Discovery Bay never opened. Today, we’ll explore the tumultuous tale leading up to its design, what this magnificent land would’ve contained, why it never opened, and where you can find its DNA scattered around the globe. Hold on tight as we uncover the sunken mysteries of Discovery Bay.
Hints in the West
Image: Disney
If you’ve visited Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, or Disneyland Paris, you’ve likely been awe-struck by the towering, geometric “natural” formations of Big Thunder Mountain. At each of those parks, the ride’s iconic rock towers were modeled very precisely after the inspiring stone monoliths of Arizona’s Monument Valley, a massive and expansive desert National Park. Like their (relatively) massive and overpowering castles, those three parks all built imposing, harsh, angular, geometric peaks in expansive desert settings on purpose – it builds a larger-than-life scale (above).
But did you ever notice something subtly different about Disneyland’s version of the ride?
Sure, the roller coaster track itself in California is a scaled-down replica of Florida’s, meant to fit more snugly into the miniscule park’s cramped quarters. But there’s something else about Disneyland’s that simply doesn’t match the others.
Image: Disney
There, the iconic mountain range is not modeled after the geometric, harsh, intimidating towers of Monument Valley. Instead, famed Imagineer Tony Baxter opted to use the softer, rounded “hoodoos” of Utah’s Bryce Canyon, a National Park famous for its eroded desert formations nestled amid a dense forest. The hypnotic towers are not gigantic, powerful and strong. Like Disneyland’s castle, they’re not about size and dominance. Rather, they’re more charming and warm. The hoodoos are somewhat… well… unbelievable. They’re more fantasy than forceful (above), and of course, it’s not just a coindence that Disneyland’s is different from the others. In fact, that’s just the way Baxter wanted it.
The softer towers of Disneyland’s Thunder Mountain tell a subtley different tale… The fanciful formations are certainly more appropriate for the quaint park (and the ride’s proximity to Fantasyland), but they also signal the existence of Discovery Bay.
Manifest destiny
Imagine this: when you step into Frontierland, you’re supposed to feel that you’ve been transported to the 1860s Old West, when prospectors discovered gold in the fresh mines of Thunder Mountain. And for all we know, the miners there simply settled into the town and spent their winnings at the saloon, right?
But what if they didn’t? What if, instead, those prospectors – now flush with gold – continued their Westward Ho journey to manifest destiny and found themselves along the Golden Coast of California? Imagine, then, if those prospectors settled into San Francisco, right at the start of its economic boom – right as it became known as the “Paris of the West?”
Imagine if they created in San Francisco an international coastal city for explorers, adventurers, thinkers, artists, and scientists – a golden, seaside port of crystalline towers, technology, cogs, hot air balloons, steel, gadgets, and wonder? Welcome to Discovery Bay.
On the next page, we’ll begin our in-depth exploration into this seaside mechanical Mecca and its origin story, then we’ll go in-depth into the rides and attractions planned for Disney’s most impressive lost land.
Haunting divisions
After Walt’s death in 1966, some – even inside the company – wondered if the Walt Disney Company could continue at all. After all, a generation of Americans had grown up with Walt Disney, seeing his face on television, hearing of him in the news, and watching his name flash before their favorite motion pictures.
To those folks, “Disney” was a man’s name first, and a company second. Many wondered if it might feel disingenuous to see a movie carrying his name, but without his direction. What was the Walt Disney Company without Walt Disney?
Similarly, the Disney parks went through a tumultuous period of upset without Walt’s direction. What would become of The Haunted Mansion, for example? Its gleaming white plantation house exterior was ready in 1963, but at the time of Walt’s death, the interior of the ride was still directionless.
And after his death, competing ideas of what the Mansion should contain were pitted against one another.
In one corner stood Claude Coats, famed artist and designer whose credits stretched back to Walt’s earliest cartoon shorts, through Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and up through the opening of Disneyland and beyond. Coats’ idea for the Haunted Mansion was that it ought to be a chilling, haunting, surreal trip through a ride packed with unfathomable special effects. His storytelling style also necessitated that the ride be free from plot or narrative and very visceral. His famed “Limbo” boarding (concept art above) set the metaphysical, ominous tone.
Across the way stood Marc Davis, equally renowned and celebrated artist and Imagineer whose credits included many famed animated characters and the audio-animatronic figures on Jungle Cruise, Tiki Room, and Carousel of Progress. Davis’ school of thought – as evidenced in his later work on Pirates of the Caribbean – was a character-driven, plot-focused attraction filled with Animatronics and light-hearted gags. The Hatbox Ghost, the Hitchhiking Ghosts, and the cemetery characters were all results of Davis’ more lighthearted view of what the Mansion should be.
Ultimately, the Haunted Mansion that ended up opening in 1969 was a clever combination of the style of both men – a haunting, moody, ominous opening act from Coats, and a rousing, character-driven, singsong, gag-filled second act from Davis that, in many regards, resembles the atmosphere of Pirates. These two men are their particular, complimentary styles will play into Discovery Bay soon.
A new decade
In 1970 – just a year after the Haunted Mansion opened – a new Imagineer joined the team. Fresh out of college, the young man was Tony Baxter. He’d worked at Disneyland part time throughout high school and college, working his way up from an ice cream scoop position to a ride operator on the park’s Submarine Voyage. For a final project in a college design course, Baxter had designed a Mary Poppins ride for Disneyland. A few informal connections got the plans to veteran Imagineers like Coats and Davis, and after a tour and a change of schools, Baxter was in.
His first project with Imagineering well encapsulates Disney’s position in the 1970s. He was sent directly to Orlando alongside Claude Coats to oversee the artistic set design for Magic Kingdom’s version of the Submarine Voyage. But this new Floridian version would be stylized after a famous Jules Verne’s novel (and Disney’s equally renowned 1959 film adaptation). You can read the in-depth story in our standalone entry, Lost Legends: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. While the ride was very similar to Disneyland’s original, it was placed in Magic Kingdom’s Fantasyland and given the Jules Verne overlay to fit stylistically. (For Baxter’s part, he went from operating Disneyland’s part time in 1969 to being the artistic designer of Magic Kingdom’s the very next year).
Once Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, Baxter returned to California and to an Imagineering group alight with ideas. The 1970s would be a time of tremendous and unprecedented growth for Imagineering, and the decade is responsible for many classically loved attractions today.
Baxter shines
With Imagineering gearing up for a decade of immense change and extraordinary attractions, Baxter was invaluable. He was, put simply, the first of a new generation of Imagineering. Straight out of school and no doubt filled with fresh optimism, he fell under the wing of Claude Coats, who would become his enduring mentor alongside John Hench and Marc Davis.
It had to have been a beneficial relationship for both. For one thing, this new generation of young, upstart Imagineers had never worked alongside Walt Disney. Indeed, Tony was eight years old when Disneyland opened, while most of his senior colleagues had been the ones responsible for its opening. However, Tony also had his own upper hand – he had grown up with Disneyland. He had visited as a guest. He had worked in the park’s day-to-day operations in a way that the senior Imagineers could never have. His unique perspective would be an asset.
And even right off the bat, the plans he had would change everything. Indeed, Disney was facing a very serious problem in Florida and California, and Baxter would develop the plans to fix it…
Thunder Mesa
Magic Kingdom opened in 1971 with a large plot of land left open in its Frontierland in the northwest corner of the park. Marc Davis (the Imagineer behind Pirates of the Caribbean and the character-driven second act of Haunted Mansion) had elaborate plans to build an attraction complex there. The massive Thunder Mesa complex would’ve contained multiple attractions wrapping around and throughout the desert setting.
Thunder Mesa’s E-Ticket, though, would be the other inhabitant of Possibilityland: Western River Expedition – a character-heavy dark ride that would’ve been Magic Kingdom’s answer to Pirates of the Caribbean, themed to the Old West and populated with heroic cowboys. An epic floating dark ride through cinematic Western landscapes, Davis designed the unique and stunning attraction intentionally, since Imagineers believed that pirates would bore Floridian visitors. After all, pirates were a reality in the nearby Gulf and the stuff of local lore, not something exotic and mysterious.
Once guests made it to the new park, it did not escape public notice that Magic Kingdom had taken many of the best elements of Disneyland and supersized them… except Pirates of the Caribbean. Guests allegedly asked routinely where the Pirates ride was and when it would open.
In response, Disney began work on an answer, hastily constructing a shortened version of Disneyland’s Pirates of Caribbean at the Magic Kingdom. The turnaround was quick, and Florida’s Pirates opened in 1972. But with Pirates, Magic Kingdom would not need Western River Expedition, so the Thunder Mesa attraction complex was axed. But the idea of the Western River Expedition lived on and would inspire a new E-ticket for Frontierland just when it needed it most…
Reactions
Disneyland has always been an exemplary example of design principles at work – an escapist reality, just detailed enough to feel inhabitable, but with impossible fantasy behind each faux doorway. It’s a place to engage the masses by allowing them to descend into worlds they’ve always dreamed of.
But that dream hasn’t always been the same.
When Disney fans think of “Adventureland,” it’s irrevocably tied to visions of deep jungles, misty rivers, and exotic animals. But… why? Why, of all the “adventures” out there was this single genre selected to embody it all? Put simply, Disneyland’s themed environments are reactions. They’re answers to the popular culture at the time they were built. Disneyland’s Adventureland is a jungle because, in the early 1950s, public interest peaked in the “exotic” jungles of Africa, safaris, and wild life.
Then, by the turn of the decade, things had changed. With Hawaii’s entry into the United States in 1959, the craze of Tiki culture swept the country and suddenly the Polynesian mysticism and romance became the ideal “adventure.” Tiki bars opened in cities around the U.S., Gilligan’s Island hit the airwaves, and Adventureland’s first expansion followed suit as “adventure” changed definitions.
When you think about it, it happened again in the 1990s. With the once-“exotic” jungles of the undeveloped world now accessible instantly via the Internet, Adventureland shifted again. Now tinged with fantasy, the whole land has a new narrative – a 1930s lost Indian delta expedition overseen by Indiana Jones – the new American ideal of “adventure.”
We know that the same happened to Tomorrowland (1967) and would happen to Fantasyland (1983) as each land responded to the shifting perceptions of their respective eras.
But one area of the park was still in need of updating.
The Frontierland problem
Walt’s last contribution to Disneyland was New Orleans Square with its two E-tickets: Pirates of the Caribbean (1967) and the Haunted Mansion (1969). Originally intended to be an expansion of Frontierland, the New Orleans corner eventually annexed itself entirely into a new land.
Which was all well and good, except that the old Frontierland was feeling very lifeless in comparison.
For one thing, the land’s only attraction was a Walt original: the Mine Train Thru Nature’s Wonderland. While it was exceptional for the era it was built in, its time was coming to an end as visitor numbers dropped and interested faded.
But secondly, Frontierland had simply lost its luster in the public eye. During the park’s initial planning, the concept of the American frontier was at the forefront of popular culture. Davy Crockett and The Lone Ranger had re-ignited the television screen; “Cowboys and Indians” was the choice backyard game for young children and it seemed that the West would forever be a romantic ideal on par with the jungles of Adventureland or the storybook villages of Fantasyland. But by 1970, it wasn’t. The public’s interest in the Old West had dried up (and arguably hasn’t returned since, despite some earnest efforts).
It’s one thing to incorporate society’s current ideas of “adventure” into Adventureland, but what can be done to a Frontierland when the concept of the American frontier has run its course?
Barely 25 (but with Claude Coats, Marc Davis, and the best of the senior Imagineers to guide him), Tony Baxter was faced with the seemingly improbable task of making Frontierland relevant to a society that couldn’t care less about cowboys and Indians.
On the next page, we’ll step into Tony Baxter’s brilliant and beloved Discovery Bay, his idea for the expansion Frontierland needed. We think that you’ll agree upon reading that most every attraction he designed would’ve been an instant classic. But let’s enter Discovery Bay together.
Imagine. It’s 1976. America is celebrating its bicentennial and, across the entire country, celebrations have been ongoing for a year. If you can imagine, the bicentennial had spread unbridled and organic patriotism. Americana was in full swing and – put simply – people were just proud to be Americans.
And there may be no better place to celebrate that than Disneyland, with its brass plaque engraved with Walt’s dedication, calling for the park to be “dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America.” The plaque positioned over the park’s entry tunnels says:
“Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.”
And in the brand new Discovery Bay, you can be in all three at once.
Frontierland
It all begins in the park’s Frontierland – one of the park’s five original lands as overseen by Walt Disney in 1955. Frontierland is meant to be a celebration of the nation’s roots and – more importantly – its growth.
Westward expansion was at the heart of American optimism in the 19th century and the call for “manifest destiny” meant that Americans were destined to expand throughout the continent, claiming new territory and leading lives of fulfillment and promise. The sleepy Western town of Frontierland is somewhat like a living museum of the era, encapsulating the endurance that 1860s explorers must’ve displayed.
But now, on the edge of the quiet mining town is something new. Soaring red peaks have appeared – a deep red, iron-rich mountain range of knobby, almost unbelievable spires. This new, headlining attraction is the one you’ve heard people talking about – Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. On board, you’re whipped around tight turns and past all manner of desert creature as your runaway train barrels through precarious tunnels and freshly dug gold mines.
After all, legend has it that there’s gold deep inside of the mountain.
Big Thunder Mountain is exactly what Disneyland needed. It’s got the magnetic draw of a thrilling roller coaster, but its gentle slopes and vivid scenery makes it perfect for the whole family. Once you’ve unloaded from the coaster, your adventure has only just begun.
Big Thunder Mountain is only the first part of this brave new expansion to Disneyland. It serves as the gateway to a most unusual and picturesque place. After all, the miners who struck the mother lode inside of Thunder Mountain won’t stay in sleepy Frontierland. They’ll pack up their wagons and continue their drive West through the Gold Rush. And eventually, they’ll make it to the coast…
Discovery Bay
This seaside port – constructed along the northeastern edge of the Rivers of America – is meant to resemble the city of San Francisco from roughly 1860 to 1880 – just after the California Gold Rush when the city was called “the Paris of the West.”
But this is more than just a historical recreation of the city. In Discovery Bay, you’ll find the epitome of Disney’s balance between reality and fantasy – in this version of San Francisco, the gold has drawn international adventurers, explorers, thinkers, and designers to create a gold and bronze bay of astounding architecture, cultural melding, and technological marvels that we today might call “steampunk.”
As astounding mix of European literature and American wonder, Discovery Bay contains multiple original, astounding attractions.
The Waterfront
It begins along the waters of the Rivers of America. Along a rocky outcropping, a tall eccentric Lighthouse beckons visitors in. This “weenie” lighthouse would draw traffic from Frontierland and Fantasyland, similar to Tomorrowland’s Rocket Jets or Sleeping Beauty Castle’s towers. Nearby, the classic Sailing Ship Columbia would be docked at a port full of crates and nets (a cleverly disguised children’s play area) with a gang plank leading up to the ship’s deck for exploration.
There, along the water’s edge, would be the Chinatown district of the eclectic port city where Chinese immigrants have built a wharf of culinary creations from Asia. (You might compare this detailed area to California Adventure’s Pacific Wharf, which is modeled after nearby Monterey’s cultural docks). In Chinatown, you’ll find the most unusual Fireworks Factory attraction. Early drafts of Discovery Bay call it a shooting gallery along the lines of Frontierland’s existing one, but later iterations cast it as an interactive dark ride as riders launch pinwheels, sparklers, and firecrackers along the factory’s assembly line.
Visibly docked out in the Rivers of America is a 200 foot long recreation of the iconic Nautilus submarine (as designed by Harper Goff for the 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). Ascending down a spiral staircase at the water’s edge, you can enter into the parked Nautilus for a walkthrough of the film’s most famous scenes (including a run-in with the menacing squid).
Guests aboard the Nautilus would also find the blueprints for the fantastic power structures that would power Discovery Bay, tying the Verne universe to Disneyland’s new area, and – in some descriptions of the land – a simulator ride (pre-dating the technology’s Star Tours debut) through Nemo’s nautical world called Captain Nemo’s Adventure. The Nautilus would also be home to a luxurious full service restaurant in the submarine’s Grand Salon (above).
Inland
Moving inland from the cultural Waterfront, the interior of Discovery Bay is lavishly decorated as an early Victorian high society port of elaborate dance hall exteriors, plush chaise lounges, crystal chandeliers, and more, all disguising actual merchandise locations selling artisan crafts, scientific supplies and scale model figurines of Disneyland attractions.
Perhaps the attraction Disney fans most would like to have seen was Professor Marvel’s Gallery of Wonders. This one-of-a-kind attraction was featured in a revolving theater (similar to the Carousel of Progress, which had just been relocated to Magic Kingdom) and would star an inventor and explorer named Professor Marvel who would introduce his menagerie of unbelievable animals, experiments, and inventions during the musical journey. Perhaps his most astounding find was his pet dragon, which faithfully sits on his shoulder as he recounts the magical journeys he’s had.
Just outside of town along a grassy hill would stand the Western Balloon Ascent, a Skyway style attraction with guests suspended below hot air balloons to lift up and over Discovery Bay for flights to the nearby Dumbo’s Circusland (a co-planned expansion of Disneyland’s Fantasyland, later adapted into Magic Kingdom’s Storybook Circus).
The icon of the streets – and perhaps all of Discovery Bay – is the massive Hyperion Airship, docked in an astounding mechanical hangar at the water’s edge. The Hyperion acts as the grand entry to the land’s signature attraction: The Island at the Top of the World. This mysterious E-ticket would’ve been themed to Disney’s 1974 adventure film of the same name, and would offer brave adventurers “a trip aboard a fantastic flying machine to an Island of paradise located at the Top of the World.”
Expansion plans
Even before Discovery Bay opened, Disney hinted at potential expansions and additional E-tickets that would’ve made their way to the land in a Phase II.
Two roller coasters were planned for the area. The first, The Spark Gap Coaster, would’ve been a family-sized compact coaster (think of Gadget’s Go Coaster or the Barnstormer, which incidentally are identical) that wrapped around tremendous gold towers pulsing with Tesla coil electrical sparks. The second was called The Tower. While less is known about The Tower, it apparently would’ve included a roller coaster car being drawn up a spiral lift hill “via magnetism” before a “reversed magnetic polarity” sent it freefalling backwards down a new path through a corkscrew.
Beyond the Hyperion hangar stood a towering, dormant volcanic mountain with bubbling waterfalls. This craggily peak would disguise a new E-ticket for the land based on H.G. Well’s Time Machine called The Voyage Thru Time. Alternatively, some concept art signals that the mountain might’ve been home to an indoor / outdoor boat attraction called The Lost World full of dinosaurs and prehistoric peril.
Potential
If Discovery Bay had been built, it would’ve been a perfect mix of science fiction, literature, original characters, fantasy, and history. Originally intended to be a mere expansion within Frontierland, Discovery Bay eventually developed into a land of its own. With a narrative born of Frontierland’s Western expansion story and sharing a common continuity thanks to Big Thunder Mountain, Discovery Bay still seemed like so much more.
And how incredible would’ve it have been if the Rivers of America contained four shores, each representing a different American story: the storied backwoods (Critter Country), New Orleans Square, the Old West (Frontierland) and a retro-futuristic San Francisco (Discovery Bay)? When it was officially announced in 1976, fans were delighted. But Discovery Bay never opened. We’ll find out why on the next page.
Discovery Bay was officially announced via a memo in October 1976. A scale model of the park expansion was then built and displayed inside of the Preview Center on Main Street, U.S.A. that same year. It was official, and Tony Baxter’s Discovery Bay would become the eighth land at Disneyland Park in California.
As we all know, Discovery Bay never materialized on the shores of the Rivers of America. As with all forgotten projects at Disney Parks, the reasons are numerous. Here are a few of the major reasons.
1) Island at the Top of the World
Today, fans often express their frustration at Disney’s lack of originality. In the opinion of some fans, Walt Disney Imagineering seems to only green-light projects that are tied to a proven, box-office success. And they might have a point, as a vast majority of Disney’s creative endeavors in the parks today are (perhaps rightly) tied to film franchises that are easy to market and come with a built-in fan base (and merchandise sales).
Don’t misunderstand – that is not how Disney operated in the 1970s, the same decade that brought Country Bear Jamboree, Space Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain. However, one major selling point for the Discovery Bay concept was the release of Disney’s Island at the Top of the World, a harrowing family adventure film that would’ve served as artistic inspiration for Discovery Bay and been the focus of the land’s E-ticket attraction.
The film’s abysmal performance at the box office and lukewarm reviews during its 1974 debut cooled executives’ reactions to Discovery Bay. While the land didn’t need a runaway box-office success to justify its construction like we might picture today, a very clear box office failure certainly weighed against Discovery Bay’s existence. While this alone might not have sealed the land’s fate, it was a strike that weakened Discovery Bay at its foundation.
2) EPCOT Center & Tokyo Disneyland
Like we said, Discovery Bay was officially announced, with a scale model and concept art, just like Pandora – The World of Avatar or Cars Land. But as the 1970s carried on, priorities began to readjust.
As the end of the decade neared, Disney diverted its attention to two massive projects: Walt Disney World’s EPCOT Center and the brand-new Tokyo Disneyland in Japan. Manpower and creative talents were absorbed by the two projects, and after the box office failure of Island at the Top of the World, Discovery Bay was simply the easiest project to let fall through the cracks.
So maybe we ought to say that Discovery Bay was officially announced, just like WestCOT or DisneySea in Long Beach. Which is to say, an official announcement that never amounts to more than that.
3) Changing tastes
The failure of Island at the Top of the World might’ve changed filmmakers’ tastes, too, which consequently changed the kinds of movies that major studios filmed. Baxter commented to the Season Pass Podcast, “People are so skittish that instead of saying ‘We did a bad Jules Verne movie,’ they go ‘Well, people don’t want to see Jules Verne movies.’” As a result, fantasy movies became less frequent.
Luckily for filmmakers, something did come around to reinvigorate films. The year after Discovery Bay’s announcement saw the debut of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The era of adventure films, dinosaurs, submarine, and time travel was usurped by the Space Craze as gritty interstellar sci-fi became the taste of the public. (Consequently, Disney would begin major investment into that genre shortly thereafter. Upon Michael Eisner’s entry to the company from his post as CEO of Paramount Pictures, film – and particularly space films – would become a mainstay in the parks. We’re talking about the fascinating story behind another Lost Legend: the original Star Tours.)
Ironically enough, the plot of land Discovery Bay would’ve been built on remained vacant for the better part of 40 years. That is, until now, as construction has begun on a full, new land based on – you guessed it – Star Wars. Make no mistake: fans have their hopes and fears about a Star Wars land at Disneyland. But it’s certainly interesting that the premier of Star Wars in the 1970s made Discovery Bay obsolete, and that 40 years later, Star Wars will take its forfeited seat in Disneyland.
Onward…
There’s no single defining reason why Discovery Bay was canned. But even if the land never materialized, that doesn’t mean that it disappeared forever. On the last page, we’ll discuss the legacy of Discovery Bay… where its pieces and parts were scattered to and what we hope to see of it in the future…
Fingerprints
They say that good ideas never die at Disney. That’s probably true. Even though Discovery Bay never made it into Disneyland Park, the DNA of Discovery Bay fractured and spread across the globe, sewn into projects at various Disney Parks and Resorts around the world. Here are just a few elements that made it.
1) Big Thunder Mountain (1979)
The single element of Discovery Bay to survive was Big Thunder Mountain, which was selected to become the signature ride of Frontierland and the replacement for the Mine Train Thru Nature’s Wonderland. It opened in 1979 – about when Discovery Bay including Big Thunder was meant to be completed. The ride works effortlessly in the existing 1860s dusty frontier town narrative of Frontierland, but placed in the context of Discovery Bay (as it was supposed to be), it feels much more multi-faceted and – somehow – more fun.
As mentioned on the first page of the article, Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain even retains the more “fantastical” hoodoo formations and forest setting meant to tie the ride to the more fantasy-oriented Discovery Bay when compared to the expansive, desert-surrounded Monument Valley grandeur of every other Thunder Mountain Disney has created.
It’s an interesting little hint at what was intended for the ride and the larger role it’s meant to play as a shared headliner between Frontierland and Discovery Bay’s narrative.
2) The lost concepts for Epcot’s The Land (1982)
Shortly after he finished work on Discovery Bay and Big Thunder Mountain, Tony was put to work designing The Land pavilion for Epcot. His original plans for The Land set the pavilion inside of a giant tower made of seven glass crystals (check the Discovery Bay concept art if you don’t see the connection there). Most interestingly, Baxter’s plan for The Land’s headlining attraction was a dark ride through the various habitats of the world suspended from the ceiling in hot air balloons.
Epcot visitors will recognize that that’s not what the Land pavilion looks like, and it has no such attraction. That’s because, just as Baxter finished his designs, the pavilion’s sponsor – a logging company – dropped out and was replaced by Kraft Foods. Given their new sponsorship, Kraft requested that the pavilion be reworked to de-emphasize habitats and instead focus on food, nutrition, and farming (which are a far more appropriate fit for Kraft’s sponsorship). So Baxter was sent next door, which brings us to…
3) Professor Marvel (1982)
The kindly, jovial Professor Marvel would’ve led guests on a tour of his Gallery of Wonders with the help of a playful dragon perched on his shoulder. Sound familiar? If not, maybe you just need one little spark to remind you. Yep, when Baxter was moved off of The Land pavilion, he was instead assigned the pavilion next door where sponsor Kodak requested “something imaginative.”
So just a few years after they would’ve appeared in Discovery Bay, the thoughtful professor and his dragon were recast as Dreamfinder and Figment, leading guests on a tour of their creativity in one of the most masterful dark rides ever created, which has since been closed itself. You can check out the must-read in-depth exploration of the ride’s development in its own Lost Legends: Journey into Imagination entry.
4) Discoveryland (1992)
In the early 1990s, something wonderful happened. Tony Baxter was asked to be the “executive producer” of Disneyland Paris, given creative control over the design of the park. Baxter went above and beyond, developing entirely new versions of classic Disney rides and infusing thoughtful European details to develop what is easily the most beautiful, detailed, and romantic Disney park on Earth.
One of his bravest choices was to eliminate “Tomorrowland” altogether. Instead, Disneyland Paris contains an equivalent land called Discoveryland (yep). Instead of Space Age architecture and white, silver, and blue color patterns, Discoveryland is meant to be a fantasy version of the future as it was envisioned by European thinkers and visionaries like Jules Verne and Leonardo da Vinci.
The result is a (you guessed it) steampunk version of Tomorrowland painted in bronze and copper with churning lagoons, fantasy allusions, organic rockwork jutting from the ground, and even – most impressively – the Airship Hyperion docked and floating above guests.
Most of Discovery Bay made it into Discoveryland stylistically, even if none of the attractions did. At least originally, the land’s contents also strayed from Tomorrowland staples, instead opting for original fantasy attractions including the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea walkthrough developed for Discovery Bay and the unbelievable Lost Legend: Space Mountain – De la Terre à la Lune, based on Jules Verne’s 19th century fantasy novel. And a planned expansion of Discoveryland would’ve included none other than Discovery Bay’s Spark Gap Coaster and its golden towers, as seen in the concept art above.
5) Thunder Mesa (1992)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tony Baxter’s executive direction over Disneyland Paris also meant a few thematic and distinctly European changes to that park’s Frontierland. For one thing, Frontierland at Disneyland Paris is just a bit different from all the rest. The land there is immensely detailed (just like the rest of the park) and given a very impressive, narrative-friendly twist borrowed – at least in part – from Davis’s lost Thunder Mesa concept for Magic Kingdom.
Paris’ version of Frontierland is united by a single thread of continuity that ties together all of the land’s rides, shows, attractions, and even restaurants into one overarching narrative. There, the Big Thunder Mining Company is owned by a curmudgeonly man named Mr. Henry Ravenswood, who built a spendid mansion high up on Boot Hill, overlooking the town of Thunder Mesa. After his daughter Melanie fell in love with a penniless miner, Mr. Ravenswood’s vengeful spirit killed the would-be groom, leaving Melanie to waste away for all eternity inside the now-creaky old house… another Parisian Modern Marvel: Phantom Manor.
That very smart plot gives Frontierland a romantic and thoughtful personality that’s an ideal blending of Coats’ atmospheric splendor and Davis’ character-driven stories in a way that Tony Baxter mastered brilliantly. While it’s not a direct splintering of Discovery Bay’s theme, it was no doubt a “lesson learned” in Baxter’s design of Discovery Bay – that an overarching narrative connecting an entire land and its many attractions leads to a more gripping land worthy of exploration. (He’d do the same to Disneyland’s Adventureland upon the opening of Indiana Jones Adventure, re-casting all of the land’s rides and attractions into a daring 1930s serial adventure storyline.)
6) New Tomorrowland (1998)
In perhaps the most ironic twist yet, the DNA of Discovery Bay did eventually make it to Disneyland. Just not in the way anyone had hoped. When Disneyland’s Tomorrowland was due for an update in the early 1990s, designers envisioned a groundbreaking and immersive “Tomorrowland 2055” that would’ve been the debut of a Lost Legend – The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter – and a host of other outstanding and unimaginable attractions. When the budget tightened after Disneyland Paris’ unfortunate opening results, designers (lead by none other than Tony Baxter) went back to the drawing board.
What they came up with, ironically enough, was to borrow elements of Paris’ Discoveryland, which had been a transmuted version of Discovery Bay. So in 1998, Disneyland’s Tomorrowland was redressed in gold, bronze, and copper paint with European-influenced architecture and Verne-esque organic rocks and bubbling lagoons, and it was all anchored by one of Disney’s most flubbed attractions ever. Its story is chronicled in a full Disaster Files: Rocket Rods feature. With a microscopic budget and a “fantasy” color palate senselessly laid over Space Age architecture and sci-fi rides, the look fell flat and has been piecemeal undone ever since. Sort of a “Discoveryland In Paint Only,” New Tomorrowland 1998 wasn’t a fair representation of what Discovery Bay could be, and we hope Disney executives wouldn’t hold fans reactions to it as evidence that Discovery Bay is improbable or unwanted.
7) Tokyo DisneySea (2001)
When Tokyo DisneySea opened in 2001, it was immediately recognized as the Mecca for theme park fans – a park that’s considered damn near perfect by Disney Parks aficionados, and each subsequent addition has only made it even more of a must-visit. Its signature, central land is Mysterious Island (named after the Jules Verne novel of the same name) and is contained entirely within the collapsed caldera of the 189-foot tall Mount Prometheus.
Alongside Paris’ Discoveryland, Mysterious Island is the other Disney Parks land dedicated to the fantasy works of Jules Verne, and it might do it even better than Discoveryland does.
The land features two headlining attractions in its breathtaking setting – a truly outstanding 21st century version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and the absolute epitome of Imagineering: the Modern Marvel: Journey to the Center of the Earth dark ride, which we rank high on our Countdown: The World’s Best Audio-Animatronics.
Just outside of Mysterious Island, set back into the cooled lava flows of Mount Prometheus, stands Fortress Explorations. The towering Renaissance palace would be a world-class science museum on its own, but in the DisneySea mythology it’s cast as the centuries-old headquarters for a mysterious organization called S.E.A.: The Society of Explorers and Adventurers – an astounding continuity thread connecting multiple Disney parks and attractions.
Fortress Explorations even has a docked sailing ship on the lagoon with a “playground” of crates and boxes just like Discovery Bay’s plans to dock the SS Columbia.
Rebirth?
The plot of land that would’ve been Discovery Bay has been hotly debated over ever since the ’70s. Especially by the 2010s, it seemed that every time Disney released a blockbuster-budgeted film, rumors swirled that they had put Imagineers to work on designing a themed land to fill the Discovery Bay plot. First it was Oz The Great and Powerful with rumors of the land becoming the city of Oz (with a carnival / Auntie Em’s farm transition from Frontierland). When that movie failed to meet expectations, rumors said that the plot would instead be used for an expansion of Frontierland based on The Lone Ranger. Of course, that film fared even worse.
So, the spot earmarked for Discovery Bay sat empty. But the acres set around the northwestern shores of the parks Rivers of America couldn’t stay that way for long. The land is the only sizable expansion pad Disneyland has, and with visitor numbers growing steadily year after year, extra capacity and space was needed. Luckily, Disney found the answer in its $4.2 billion purchase of Lucasfilm (including Star Wars and Indiana Jones.) Construction is underway on a 14-acre Star Wars land that will fill the spot Discovery Bay left empty, almost 40 years later.
And while the addition of a Star Wars land is exciting in its own right, maybe you can understand why Disney Parks fans feel a little… well… bummed. Discovery Bay would’ve been stunning and fit right alongside the park’s other lands effortlessly, while Star Wars is a little harder to reconcile.
If it were built today, Discovery Bay would still be great! About the only element of Discovery Bay that probably would be best left in the past would be the headlining Island at the Top of the World dark ride, if only because the land would be better anchored by:
- A version of DisneySea’s Journey to the Center of the Earth
- A version of DisneySea’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- A version of Baxter’s lost hot air balloon dark ride from The Land
- An original attraction based on a Jules Verne story
For our part, we wish there were something we could do convince Disney designers and executives that Discovery Bay is still worth it. If fans still clamor for the land almost 40 years after its initial announcement, it must be pretty near timeless, and that’s how a land at Disneyland should be, not tied to a movie (no matter how successful or enduring the film might be).
Just imagine: Professor Marvel’s Gallery of Wonders. Journey to the Center of the Earth. The Fireworks Factory. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The Lost World… Submarines, dinosaurs, lighthouses, crystal towers, secret explorer clubs, bubbling springs, volcanos… The potential for Discovery Bay is limitless and truly timeless, and all without a blockbuster movie to sustain it. Almost 40 years later, and it still feels relevant and right for the park.
At the risk of starting a baseless rumor, we also have to wonder aloud if this fantastical 1860s steampunk San Francisco might be the perfect fit next door at Disney California Adventure. What a brilliant way to infuse a little technological fantasy into the park while retaining its Californian narrative… It could be California Adventure’s Tomorrowland. “The San Francisco That Never Was And Always Will Be.”
You know our opinion, but tell us – what do you think of Discovery Bay? Is this lost land the masterpiece that many Disney Parks fans wax poetic about? Could its attractions have become classics under the guidance of Tony Baxter and his mentors?
Or are we wrong? Would Discovery Bay have been a bust, and aged poorly unto today? Does this concept deserve an entire, permanent land in the original Disneyland, or is it best suited for a second gate with more thematic leeway? We can’t wait to hear your thoughts. And be sure to make the jump back to our In-Depth Collections Library to set course for another Lost Legend, Modern Marvel, or a far-off Possibilityland.
