It's the big finish of my December 1959 collection, with today's post focusing on Frontierland. Our photographer of yesteryear had the good sense to capture the Slue Foot Sue sign outside of the Horseshoe.
While visiting the park, he/she apparently took a trip on the Mark Twain around the Rivers of America. I am able to deduce this because the following photos show what he saw, beginning with the Columbia being docked at Fowler's Harbor.
Zooming in, you can see another amateur photographer on the left-hand side of the photo. As always, I wonder what happened to that shot?
As the Twain passed the real Indian Village, guests could see the entrance and ticket booth, as well as the faux/taxidermied buffalo/bison (I never remember which one it is).
An almost unrecognizable unadorned Castle Rock. As the saying goes, sometimes less is more.
Even in black and white, the Burning Cabin is a memorable image:
The photograph was clear enough to handle a zoom-in, so that we can get a better look at the drunken/dead settler:
An intimidating group of Indian figures watch the guests on the Twain as they pass by.
And that's it for this group, readers! Well, except for one random bonus shot that came with the group, showing the Lawrence Welk band. I have no idea where this was taken, but it is also from December 1959.
All I can say is, "A wunnerful a wunnerful." If you are too young to know what that means, check out Lawrence Welk on youtube.
See more vintage & current Disneyland photos on my Disneyland web pages.
6 comments:
Early Frontierland looks great in black and white. It gives it an authentic feel. I guess the photographer wasn't interested in capturing Aventureland.
Image 6 - The Castle Rock image is great. It looks like they're starting the construction of the new Nature's Wonderland area. I wonder what the long tube in the background is?
I loved this series. Thanks, Dave.
Dave…it's bison. They were called buffalo in error as early settlers thought of them similar to water buffalo.
- Darryl
So recall that burning cabin! I thought it was very cool as a kid in the mid to late 50's. Once The Columbia was open we went on it. Mom thought it was rest time from marching around the park! We got food and took that aboard, ate and sailed around the mote. Later on, we went more for the canoes and paddled over to the island to run all over it, usually leaving my folks somewhere else in the park. Can recall sometimes when we went over to the island, mom and dad would go get in line for the Horseshoe Review show. I am recalling in the first yrs of Disneyland, the Horseshoe was the only place dad could get a beer there. I also recall the different foot bridges once over on the Frontier Land Island - Tom Sawyer's Island I think we called it.
Oh and the Lawrence Welk Show shot looks like it was taken at the Hollywood Palladium. They had left the Aragon Ballroom by '55 I think and were at the Palladium before going to the ABC lot on Prospect. I worked at that ABC lot in the 60's while in college and knew Welk cast members of that time pretty well. I can recall the period when ABC Exects wanted to get rid of Welk but he was on a long lease. Welk vied hard to get ABC to let him use our property at the Hollywood Palace because it only shot in color and had really good cameras. But ABC did not want to let the space go to him so he stayed at the large auditorium studio there on the 4151 Prospect lot. My grandparents were way into Welk and went to both the Aragon and the Hollywood Palladium to dance often. I wish I had kept all the photos.
Ken - You are welcome; it really is a nice little group of shots, even without Adventureland! What, no hippos?!?
Darryl - Thanks! I'll probably need reminding by the time I find another shot!
Beachgal - Unless there was some rare undocumented menu change I never heard of, Club 33 is the only place inside of Disneyland that ever served alcohol. Thanks for the LW info though; I wonder why ABC didn't want to lease the space to him?
@K Martinez, I think that big pipe/culvert in the Castle Rock shot is one of the mine train tunnels either set in place or stockpile.
Many (all?) of the train tunnels on the DLRR are big storm drain culverts (corrugated metal) which are sometimes decorated with faux rock, shotcrete or gunite, (which is similar to swimming pool linings). or not at all, just painted inside.
This "cut and cover" method would be an inexpensive and easy way to make a relatively watertight tunnel, the first few feet of each end could be decorated with shotcrete. Once into the tunnel, it might be dark enough for the metal liner to be unnoticed.
Other smaller Disney tunnels (Casey Junior, the passage to the Indian village, Injun Joe's Cave) might be all shotcrete, but are probably still cut and cover construction since all the topography is theming. I'm fascinated with the waterproofing of these structures since they are so irregular but clearly require it.
Exposed timber shoring with planks and logs can be seen at the extreme right of the same photo, I think this is part of the mule trail route.
JG
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