Welcome back to March 1957! The Mine Train is just leaving the loading area for another adventure through the desert and the caverns of Rainbow Mountain. At this stage in time, the train was named The Rainbow Mountain Railroad (thus the RMRR on the side—pure genius, huh?). Can you believe the El Dorado Hotel is still in business? Check it out next time you are on Big Thunder Mountain! Or just look at the next photo if you can't make it to Anaheim:
Back to 1957, here's another angle from the same batch of photos:
I love this point-of-view shot taken from the Stagecoach; almost like you were there. Unfortunately, this attraction 86'ed by 1960:
This photo gives a great view of the Mark Twain dock as well as an overview of the town of Rainbow Ridge (with that newfangled Skyway contraption in the background):
This shot has me baffled; Fort Wilderness can be seen here, but I can't figure out what the construction going on in the left-hand corner would be.
Zooming in, hopefully some Disneyland Geek smarter than me can figure this one out:
Last one for today is a closeup of Fort Wilderness. Looks like landscaping is busy beautifying the grounds with some new trees.
Congrats to my 5 Year Anniversary Winners! Mark Taft took home 1st place, with Jed & Richard coming in 2nd place with 8x10 photos from the Daveland collection. Thanks to everyone for participating!
See more vintage and contemporary Disneyland Frontierland photos at my main website.
I believe the Fort Wilderness/construction photo is flipped and the trail you see there is the mule or stagecoach trail. I flipped it and it's screaming "Build Cascade Peak here!" As for the construction, from your other photo it appears they were still working on Tom Sawyer Island at this time, so my guess would be "general Island construction."
ReplyDeleteI kinda had a feeling the photo was flipped so try to imagine me sitting here with my eyes closed going over the Rivers of America in my head, LOL.
ReplyDeleteI like the view of the Mark Twain loading doc.
The Mine Train shot is a beauty.
ReplyDeleteThe "on board" stagecoach shot is neat too, but I'm trying to figure out how the person got a photo from that low angle. Did they lean out the side and snap a photo?
I hope those three fellows enjoy eating their spaghetti-os off of those plates!
I went back and looked at the original slide; it's not backwards; it faces the same way as the others.
ReplyDeleteMajor - the Stagecoach (or even perhaps Covered Wagon) shot could have been taken from the front, by a lucky guest who got to sit up with the driver.
The left hand construction looks like vertical concrete wall formwork. I'm not sure how the Disney rock formations are created (just the ones I have designed on other jobs), but some of them probably have concrete retaining walls in the core and the fake rocks added over that. This might be construction of a rock outcropping, possibly one end of Injun Joe's Cave.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I had nothing to do with any Disney construction.
JG
Thanks again, Dave! Can't wait to see the plates in person- awesome!
ReplyDelete(By the way, the link you have for my site is wrong. The correct one is www.InsightsandSounds.blogspot.com)
Hey Mark - link is fixed, and your plates should arrive on Wednesday!
ReplyDeleteCan't wait, Dave! What a gift! Thanks, again.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to the WINNERS...and Thank You Dave for the links to their wonderful blogs.
ReplyDeleteSusan :-)
Dave, the plates arrived today. They are absolutely beautiful! Thansk again- what a blessing!
ReplyDeleteMark