Richard Nixon visited Disneyland in August 1955 with his family. This image shows the then Vice President getting ready to put daughter Tricia on one of the Dumbo Flying elephants. Wife Pat is looking very fashionable in her hat, gloves, and purse at left. Zooming in, you can see a few boxes of nails just sitting inside the perimeter of the attraction. Maybe kids could throw them at the peasants below as they circled over Fantasyland!
Proof that the Dumbo ears were designed to flap up and down; in this detailed view you can see that the ear was not originally molded to the vehicle.
In consecutive shot #2, Tricia is now in the vehicle, as sister Julie anxiously awaits her turn on Dumbo.
Lots of cameras that day, including one daring gent who has one foot on Dumbo’s seat and another on the arm that attaches the vehicle to the center mechanism.
In this image from the USC Digital archive, you can see that Fess Parker was nearby. Apparently the photographer of the first two images did not want to include him!
See more Nixon family photos at Disneyland on my main website.
2 comments:
Yes, even daughters of vice presidents need a 'little help' every once in a while when preparing to fly in the skies above Fantasyland. I guess the restrooms are open - it's hard to verify in these shots. And It's good to see our old friend the aluminum phone booth was an early member of the Fantasyland landscape, prior to its 'giving birth' to additional paystations.
Good grief, I saw Fess Parker before I even read his name but I totally missed that phone booth in two shots. I'd never heard/seen a phone booth before. Sure, maybe Tomorrowland had some of those round, fiberglass clamshell style phonebooths in the 60's but I had never seen an honest-to-God phone booth until now. I guess that was there in case Steve Reeves visited.
Post a Comment