Here's a great vintage view of the Disneyland hotel, taken from the Monorail. Since its opening, the hotel continued to grow and grow, as is evidenced by the 11 story Tower Building (later called the Sierra Tower). It made its debut less than a year before this photo was taken (opening in September, 1962). At the time it was Orange County's tallest building (although the Matterhorn is a taller structure). Due to the placement of the elevator, the sign at the top of the building eventually read "Hotel Disneyland" instead of "Disneyland Hotel".
In 1966 the Sierra Tower Annex was added, basically doubling the size of the original tower (it would extend to the left of the elevator).
If you are interested in the Disneyland Hotel's history, you have to read
this book by Donald Ballard. It'll tell you everything you need to know! That's where I got all of the info for this post.
That tower looks a bit lonely in a blank sky. It must have been a pretty awesome place to stay back in the day!
ReplyDeleteOh, and my blog is updated! ;)
Lots of station wagons in the lot!
ReplyDeleteOne of the mysteries from the Hotel's past (I have encountered several others) is, when did they install the Hotel Disneyland sign atop this first tower? In all my research for the book, I never found the exact date.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting footnote: when Jack Wrather ok'd the addition of the Hotel Disneyland sign, the news was not received warmly by Walt Disney. Walt did not want anybody seeing the sign from inside Disneyland, thinking it would destroy the feeling of being in a Magic Kingdom isolated from the rest of the world. It was one of only a very few rifts ever between Disney and Wrather.
Man... I'd love to have any one of those swank cars parked here!
ReplyDelete