It is fantastic to get a batch of slides that are date stamped; it's even better when the person who shot them writes the actual date on the slide itself. For this batch, the photographer wrote August 27, 1956 on each one. Do you know how much detective work that saves me?
Thanks to Jason Schultz's Disneyland Almanac, I also know that on August 27, 1956, the park hours were 10am—10pm and that attendance was 21, 501. The high was 75 degrees and the low was 65. Sounds like a perfect day to me!
Zooming in, it appears that this tent is promoting the Autopia. At first I thought it might have been a holdover from the Circus, which finally closed 11 days after this shot was taken.
Only one Tomorrowland shot in this batch, featuring the Autopia.
A few fun shots from the Skyway, as the bucket approaches Fantasyland.
Sailing past the miniature Cinderella Castle from Storybook Land:
The next two were most likely taken from the Fantasyland Skyway Station area:
Crossing over to Adventureland, it's time for a spin on Amazon Belle from the Jungle Cruise:
The Mark Twain is looking very majestic in Frontierland:
A nice shot from the Twain (the Columbia was not in existence yet) looking back at the dock area:
I do love seeing the Keelboat in actual operation, not just as a stationary prop:
The same can be said of Fort Wilderness, which can be spotted as the Mark Twain goes around Tom Sawyer's Island:
Last shot for the day shows the Indian Settlement:
I hope you've enjoyed your trip through Disneyland, circa August 27, 1956.
stu29573 is the winner of the Fort Wilderness Railroad book contest. Stu - email me your address (at dvdpicasso@aol.com) and I will send them out pronto!
See more vintage & current Disneyland photos on my Disneyland website.
6 comments:
Wow quite a gallery of super early pics! That path around the Mill sure looks pristine doesn't it? A little too much. They toned it down or eliminated it in a few years I think...? Looks like a real city across the way in the Keelboat pic. Makes me wanna go get on and get o'er there! The fort looks fantastic, the day great... Thanks for the trip back Dave! :)
Not much to be said other that what a wonderful collection. I really enjoyed the view outside the berm over StoryBook Land.
This is a FANTASTIC collection of photos! You must share the Fort Wilderness photo on the Bring Back Disneyland's Fort Wilderness Facebook page!
Dave, if you ever get photos from September 1955, PLEASE let me examine them with a magnifying glass - that's when my parents and I first went to Disneyland.
Beautiful. I love that shot from the Skyway stairs back toward the ...wait!..No Matterhorn!!...
JG
Wow, what a great bunch! I see a rare Art Corner poster in that first photo. Love the repurposed Autopia sign. The Keelboat shot is really unusual and nice too.
You posted so many in one go... I would have made these last a week!
I forgot about the tiki torches on TSI. It really set the right atmosphere in the evenings when looking at the island after it had closed. There was a real sense of looking out at the frontier.
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