Monday, April 26, 2010

Early Disneyland: Welcome to Storybook Land!



This undated batch of black and white negatives is a fantastic look at Storybook Land (and a few other cool places, too, as you’ll see in tomorrow's post). Based upon the sign to the left of the Castle and the way Storybook Land looks (with no Matterhorn in the background), I would guess that these negatives date to about 1957 (or thereabouts). So sit back and enjoy this trip in (of course!) chronological order. Our first view is of the village from Alice in Wonderland:



A beautiful shot of the original Toad Hall area:



The home of the seven dwarfs looks empty:



of course I had to zoom in on their signage:



Can’t miss taking a shot of Cinderella’s Castle:



Whoa! Here comes Casey Junior above us!



This looks like your normal shot of the Windmill area...



Until we zoom in closer and see what appears to be an empty light socket waiting for a bulb!





Storybook Land has always been fascinating to me; the attention to detail blows my mind. This is one journey I would love to have go much slower, as the Canal Boats race by too quickly to notice everything. I’m sure that’s the point to keep the guests coming back!

See more Disneyland Storybook Land photos at my regular website.

6 comments:

Major Pepperidge said...

These are great, such a charming attraction and definitely "old school". The ride is even better at night!

Vintage Disneyland Tickets said...

Nice chronicle of early Storybook Land, even in black & white it looks whimsical. That little sign is awesome, there's so much detail on this attraction, too bad the boats never break down & stop!

Ride it a night? I've never done that, good idea Major!

Thanks Dave!

Heidi Ann said...

I love Storybook Land.
One of my favorite Lands.

Katella Gate said...

This ride is defiantly the oldest of Old School and always a good place to depressurize. But it still does irk me when the dwarfs are not listed in "marching order" (Doc, Grumpy, Happy...)

BTW, I think the lamp-thing at the end is actually a discrete "track clear" signal for the Casey Jones Engineer.

Connie Moreno said...

Oh my gosh....amazing!!

Anonymous said...

I love Storybookland. There I said it.

JG