Friday, December 14, 2007

Trip to Disneyland, Sept. 1959, The Final Chapter



1959 was an exciting year for the park; the Matterhorn, the Submarine Voyage, and the Monorail all debuted at the same time. Today, we are going to take the Horse-Drawn Streetcar to Central Plaza which will leave us at the entrance to Tomorrowland, and then board the Skyway to get a birds-eye view of the park. Although slightly blurred, these have to be 2 of my favorite Skyview shots, as they definitely give you a feeling of sitting smack-dab-in-the-middle of the round buckets.





Down below is Storybook Land:



And now we begin our descent back to the Tomorrowland Station:



Hope you enjoyed this series from a pivotal year in the park’s history.

See more vintage Disneyland Skyway photos at my main website.

9 comments:

The Viewliner Limited said...

Fantastic shot of the Space Bar, Dave. A place I visited many times over the years.

Major Pepperidge said...

I've always loved the colors of the Skyway buckets...those soft metallic blues, greens, and golds. I want a 50's car in that particular gold color!

outsidetheberm said...

Sure do miss the Skyway. Thanks, Dave.

CoxPilot said...

This series has been the most enjoyable for me because it was the first year I worked at the Park. The feeling is just as I remembered it, and the colors brought back the beauty of those times. Thanks Dave.

Unknown said...

Kudos on the Skyway shots! I love the one from inside the Matterhorn. I was there the year they were patching the holes.

It is always a little sad at the end of a trip--even a virtual one!

CoxPilot said...

I never noticed that one of the skyway buckets has a red light on the top, and the others do not. I looked through your skyway photos, and found that the lights seem to appear around 1958/59, this may have been during the time they were being added. Don't you love those little fiberglass chairs in the buckets. They must have robbed all the break rooms around the park.

Matterhorn1959 said...

Hey Coxpilot- just noticed your image- I like it a lot!! Did you keep any of the cars or airplanes from when you worked there?

CoxPilot said...

To Matterhorn: Every employee at Cox was given one of each new product when it came out. I have one of each in the original box (including tons of slot car stuff), along one each of the engines in their original bubble packs. I was one of 5 in the art department after the circle closed in '65 and I have almost every drawing (a lot of original art), brochure and instruction sheet, including the box art that was in the dumpster. Cox went belly-up in late '66, but was re-animated later. From there I went to Hughes in Fullerton in the art Dept, and when they shut down in '95 I did the same thing with all the dumped art there. 30 years of stuff.

Chris Merritt said...

Wow - coxpilot, we'd love to see some of that artwork!