"Souvenir Dungeon" - Map Time!

Let us walk down the long spiral stone staircase into... the gloomy depths of the souvenir dungeon!

I've always loved Disneyland maps of any kind. How many kids pored over their INA brochures, souvenir guidebooks, or (best of all) the huge poster maps, reliving their most recent trips to the park? The maps I am sharing today are a bit less conventional, but still cool.

Let's start with this wonderful tin "TV tray". It is undated, but must be from 1955, judging by the charmingly inaccurate artwork (it resembles the map in the Mattel "Your Trip to Disneyland" record set, which you can see at the Vintage Disneyland Tickets blog). The tray is 17 inches by 12.5 inches, and is not super rare - although they can be hard to find in good condition.


Zooming in on Main Street, you can see that the Bandstand is smack-dab in the middle of Town Square. Mickey's flower portrait shows him in profile, and there is another street east of Main Street that looks like a rudimentary version of "International Street" - never built. Notice the big circus tent! Adventureland looks pretty accurate, all things considered.


Frontierland shows the Rivers of America with buildings that look like the kind you might see on an 1880's trip along the Mississippi. The stagecoach doesn't go through a painted desert; instead it heads through a mountain pass, into an area with box canyons and mesas. In Fantasyland, the teacup ride is shown with giant figures of the Mad Hatter and the March Hare (?). Dumbo looks like it is still in its "pink elephant" phase.


And finally, the Tomorrowland corner of the park is dominated by a large expanse of grass! In fact, it actually looks like that big area was still a part of either Main Street or Fantasyland, with some sort of buggy or chariot ride through the countryside. There's the Autopia and the Phantom Boats. The basic layout of Tomorrowland looks pretty close to the finished version, with the Clock of the World, the Rocket to the Moon, and the symmetrical show buildings on either side of the main walkway.


Our second map comes courtesy of the Hallmark Company (they had a store on Main Street, remember). This is a paper place mat, intended for a child's birthday party. The area outside the train tracks is die-cut - the fact that it wasn't removed and thrown away is a miracle. I love the little drawings of kids at play! Several of Disneyland's landmarks (the Train Station, the two Jungle Cruise launches, the Mark Twain, the Castle, the Rocket to the Moon, the Matterhorn, and the Submarine) have also been die-cut so they can be folded into a simple 3-dimensional map.


I hope you've enjoyed today's visit to the dungeon!