Sunday, May 31, 2009

Two Bridges, September 1961

I know, today's post is pretty lackluster... I promise to do better tomorrow!

Here's a photo taken (presumably) from the Mark Twain, looking towards Tom Sawyer Island. We can see two of my favorite features on the island, the floating-bobbing-undulating pontoon bridge, and the swaying suspension bridge. Did pontoon bridges like that ever exist, really? It's obviously a popular feature; and look at all the souvenir hats!


The suspension bridge closed for what seemed like a year or two, and I feared that it would never come back, but thankfully it has.

5 comments:

Smuggler's cove said...

It's a parade of hats. Those straw hats are kinda neat, and appropriate for the area. The folks seem to be having a fun time.

Vintage Disneyland Tickets said...

I can't say I've ever seen a real " pontoon bridge", but I like to pretend everyone has one! Hey, they suspension bridge was closed on my last two visits, in fact, I haven't seen it in use since the Pirates took over the island (are they leaving soon???)...

Katella Gate said...

As I recall, the bridges both fell into a state of disrepair around the end of the Pixar distribution contract, and Eisner asked the Jobs family to spend the day at Disneyland with Mike as host.

Well, Jobs layed into Eisner pretty heavy about all the things that were broken, and especially Tom Sawyer's Island where nothing was working or open... That shamed management into getting some money to fix things up.

Chiana said...

Katella... the mind boggles.

Maj, hey I enjoy a good (badder the better? hehe) attempt across the ole pontoon bridge. I've no idea if something like that ever existed before but that's Walt's thing on "plausibility" paying of there. One's willing to buy that it coulda been. That and the suspension bridge are fun. :)

Can still remember being "helped" over and not wanting to be :p

Anonymous said...

The pontoon bridge was a blast. Too bad to hear it is gone. I was one of the lucky ones to experience TSI in its original state.