Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Two More from 1955

We return once again to 1955, and the first few weeks of Disneyland's opening. Starting with this shot of the Carrousel; there is a large generator to our left, I'm guessing it was used to help provide light for the workmen working on the Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship behind us. As you'll see in a future post, it has a way to go before it is ready for its closeup. So to speak. The Carrousel itself is sort of lost in the shadows, but I still enjoy a bit of "people watching". It wouldn't be long before ladies stopped wearing skirts everywhere and switched over to capri pants and pedal-pushers.


It must be an optical illusion, Frontierland looks surprisingly vast in this photo! I guess it's due to our angle looking back at the bend in the river. You can see that expanse of green lawn near Aunt Jemima's and the Silver Banjo BBQ... I'm not sure how long that remained there, or even what replaced it. Was it simply paved over to make room for lots of pounding, sneakered feet? Judging by the stippled surface of the river, there was a nice breeze to help take the edge off of the summer heat.

6 comments:

TokyoMagic! said...

Seeing photos of the park in it's first year are always a treat! I love the old Fantasyland, even if it doesn't have quite the same charm of today's version. Didn't the petrified tree stump (Happy Anniversary Lillian!!!) get placed somewhere along where that grass is in 1956?

Anonymous said...

whoa, and Slue Foot Sue sure built herself a huge joint!

sneakered feet hehe

the lady with the little girl right in the middle of the fantasyland pic is a dish, right outta the '40s.

maybe the generators were for boiling water, for an early failed experiment at serving Chicken of the Steam.

Daveland said...

Great shot of the Riverbank - and yes, it sure does look huge at that angle!

The Viewliner Limited said...

Beautiful river shot. Gives you a good perspective of where everything is at.

Anonymous said...

re: Chicken of the Steam.

so I'm poking around Daveland's blog (hi Dave! Love your site too!) and I caught a comment by CoxPilot that they DID serve steamed tuna! Said he enjoyed eatin his Chicken of the Steam by Skull Rock. Guess the experiment worked hehe

Anonymous said...

Fringy umbrellas everywhere in those early days of the park!