The old Submarine Voyage; gone but not forgotten! And this view, from June 1968 has the added bonus of showing the Carousel of Progress, which never fails to please me. Even the rectangular Skyway buckets are great.
The Nautilus passes through a waterfall into the dark ride portion of the sub attraction. It's so cool that there is a big "show building" that is completely covered in landscaping so that you don't even know it's there unless you really look for it.
Let's spend a few moments enjoying Disneyland's Town Square!
See that nerd with the glasses? Well, that's the town square. He is one jive turkey! I like this unusual angle looking toward Main Street Station, with a not-too-busy square. Some work is being done on the station, notice the scaffolding. I am always amazed when I think about how tight money was back in 1954/55, and yet Main Street turned out so beautifully.
Fun Fact: The canon is always fully loaded and ready to fire (in case of hippies).
Same day, different vantage point; folding chairs await the Disneyland Band. Drinking fountain alert! Look at all those benches! Smart visitors know when to slow down, take a break, rest their feet, and soak up the ambiance. Apparently I'm not so smart, because I rarely do that... but I know I should.
Oh boy, the Indian dancers, my favorite. It was probably lots of fun to watch, but it made for a repetitive photo subject. I wish I had the little sign that indicated when the next performance would be, however!
Over in Nature's Wonderland, the Rainbow Desert was all rainbowy and stuff. The stone mesas and natural arches not only looked cool, but they helped to hide your train from the train that was just behind you. Oh, those Imagineers were sneaky!
It's saturday, and that means it is time for another "Anything Goes" post! This one should appeal to you train fans out there.
Today's photos are from March 1969, and they feature two beautiful steam locomotives used in the recreation of the famous Golden Spike ceremony that took place when the transcontinental railroad was completed May 10, 1869 - 100 years before these pictures were shot!
SO... some of you may have seen these pictures on my blog, since Blogger's user interface update has caused some havoc. Anyway, they were only up for a few hours, but GDB reader Roger Colton had some amazing info to share!
Likely this is in the Los Angeles area somewhere on Union Pacific property before May of 1969. The UP operated a number of special trains to the ceremonies in Utah for the May 10th anniversary. The locomotives were on loan from Paramount Pictures. The vintage railway cars also came from the collections of various motion picture studios. The UP shipped everything on flatcars from LA to Utah as all were too old to make the move on their own wheels at this time.
Today we're in Frontierland! It's rootin', but only a little tootin'.
This first picture, from June 1960, is fascinating to me. Nature's Wonderland had only just opened, and apparently not everything was completely ready to go. As you can see, the area known as "Bear Country", seen from the dramatic perspective of the trestle bridge over the water, has only one measly bear!
Blogger has recently updated its user interface, and it has caused me a number of odd problems. I suppose I'll get used to it, but for now it is doing weird things. Like publishing a draft immediately instead of on the date/time that I have assigned to it. So some of you may have already seen this post a week or so ago! There are more screwups to come, I'm afraid.
ANYWAY, it's time for another trip out to the Mojave Desert to visit the old silver-mining town of Calico.
This first image is from a different lot than the other three, but it is a nice shot (from March 1959) of "Calico House", which I am assuming was (is?) the equivalent of the Saloon at Knott's.
The next three images are from March, 1963. Here's a neat shot that gives a pretty vivid idea of how harsh the environment is around Calico; it looks like Mars! See that little train? It's the Calico and Odessa Railroad, which you can still ride today; it is typical of the kind of trains used to haul silver ore back in the old days.
Walter Knott seemed to be a fan of humorous little "photo ops"... they have them at the Berry Farm, and they had them at Calico too (here's a link to another one).
Yet another Fun Foto; the fresh-faced kid's head looks wonderfully wrong on top of that miner's body.
Today I am featuring two posters in my collection, although I don't count this as a "Posterama" entry.
First up is this unusual 1966 "Tomorrowland" poster, which is from a set of five offset litho prints that (apparently) were sold in stores at Disneyland briefly. None of the posters are common, and complete sets can fetch well over $1000. I only have this one!
Today I have two nice shots of everybody's favorite fake mountain!
Today's two photos are the last of my batch from 4/29/56; all good things must end. I wish I had tons more, they were so nice!
A friend of mine recently gave me a whole bunch of vintage negatives and a few slides, all photos that he took when he was a kid. Cool! Among them was this 1960 image of Cascade Peak, along the Rivers of America.
Of course, many things have changed since then; Cascade Peak is gone, for one. Turns out that it should never have been built out of sugar cubes and Elmer's Glue. Still, the picture is full of interesting details that you just don't see at the park any more, which makes it fun.
