Tuesday, September 27, 2011

3 More From WDW, May 1972

Here are a few more photos from an 8 month-old Walt Disney World. You won't see any evidence of construction or anything exciting like that, but hopefully they are worth a look anyway.


How can you not be impressed by Cinderella's Castle? At 189 feet tall (compared to Sleeping Beauty Castle at a mere 77 feet), it soars.


In Fantasyland, Cinderella's Golden Carrousel is an authentic 94 year-old merry-go-round originally built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1917. It has 90 horses - and every horse is unique! Just like each of you, faithful readers. For reasons that aren't even worth going into, it was clunkily renamed "Prince Charming Regal Carrousel" in June of 2010.


Florida's Frontierland is looking awfully bare in this photo. I can only imagine what it must look like today after 40 years of growth. The sternwheeler named after Admiral Joe Fowler is churning the waters; does anybody know if it is basically the same in size as the Mark Twain in Disneyland? I learned (via Wikipedia) that a second sternwheeler, the Richard F. Irvine, was added in 1973; and in 1980, the Admiral Fowler, somehow suffering damage during refurbishment, was scrapped! Sacre bleu!


Stay tuned! Just a few more left in this lot.

5 comments:

Wikiwhat? said...

The Mark Twain is 105 feet long.

The Liberty Belle (formerly the Richard F Irvine) is 113 feet long.

The Mark Twain (and the now lost Fowler) features 2 smokestacks, while the Libery Belle (Irvine) has a single smokestack.

And then there's the ferry boats used as resort transportation:

General Joe Potter (originally christened Kingdom Queen)

Richard F. Irvine (originally Magic Kingdom II)

Admiral Joe Fowler (originally Magic Kingdom I)

TokyoMagic! said...

Wowie....these are beauties, Major!

The name changing of the boats is confusing!

That's Tom Sawyer Island on the right in that last pic, although it would not open to the public until 1973.

I've posted some "then and now" pics of the foliage on the other side of the river. Those can be seen here: Steamboats of the Magic Kingdom

Nancy said...

it looks soo very different now. i love seeing the early photos.

the castle is gorgeous, I must admit, and its a shame you cant see any of the back on the Fantasyland picture b/c that is my favorite part.

i agree, the confusion with those names is a bit much!

we were there a year ago this week; i am vacation again this week but no where near there ...waaaa :**(

wish i was going to be there for the celebration in just a few days. oh well, hopefully we will make i back in the spring. thanks as always for WDW images

Connie Moreno said...

Hmmm...I never realized the ships had different names. No wonder people looked at me funny when I pointed at it and said, "I want to ride the Mark Twain".

Major Pepperidge said...

Wikiwhat?, thank you for all of that good info! I like the names of the ferry boats today, as tributes to those men who helped build WDW.

TM!, I'll go check out your link right now!

Nancy, if I were you I wouldn't want to be at WDW during the celebration. Think of the crowds, yuck!

Connie, they looked at you funny because you were pointing at Dumbo!