Since the Tencennial (Part Two)

This a continuation of a previous post looking at changes since the first 10 years of Walt Disney World. Specifically, we are looking at milestones reported in the Fall 1991 issue of Disney News magazine which was celebrating Walt Disney World's Tencennial.

1975:

• The Lake Buena Vista shopping village opened with 29 shops and four restaurants.
  • This area has expanded into the Downtown Disney area, separated into the Marketplace, Pleasure Island, and West Side. It houses more than 30 shops, 16 eateries, and other entertainment venues.
• Mission to Mars and Star Jets open in Tomorrowland.
  • Mission to Mars has gone through various changes and now houses Stitch's Great Escape. Star Jets was re-themed into a retro-futuristic design and re-named to Astro Orbitor in 1994 when the new Tomorrowland opened.
• Daily performances of America on Parade celebrate the nation's bicentennial.
• The Hall of Presidents opens.
  • While this was reported in Disney News as opening in 1975, it actually was an opening day attraction at the Magic Kingdom in 1971.
  • Many changes were made to this attraction in 1993. The script was re-written and narrated by a new voice. The incumbent president began to deliver a speech. President Lincoln's speech was updated.

1976:

• River Country at the Fort Wilderness Campground opens.
  • This water park was closed in 2001 after its more-successful counterparts, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach, opened in 1989 and 1995, respectively.
• The Magic Kingdom welcomes its 50-millionth guest.

1977:

• The Empress Lilly riverboat is dedicated. It was home to three restaurants and a lounge.
  • Today Fulton's Crab House is located in the riverboat.
• The Main Street Electrical Parade makes its debut at Walt Disney World.
  • The parade had been running since 1992 at Disneyland. The Orlando version made a concurrent run until 1991 when it was replaced by SpectroMagic. It then moved on to Disneyland Paris. In 1999, the Disneyland version was refurbished and brought to Walt Disney World where it ran until 2001. The parade has since been moved back to California and runs at Disney's California Adventure park.

1978:

• Daily parades are held to celebrate Mickey Mouse's 50th birthday.
• The Magic Kingdom sets a one-year attendance record with over 14 million guests.

1979:

• Ground breaking begins for EPCOT Center.
• The Magic Kingdom welcomes its 100-millionth visitor.

1980:

• The Lake Buena Vista Conference Center and 136 Club Lake Villas open.
  • The villas became the housing portion of the Disney Institute when it opened in 1992. They were closed in 2003 and demolished to make way for the Saratoga Springs Resort.
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad makes its debut.

1981:

• Walt Disney World celebrates its Tencennial.

Since the Tencennial (Part One)

The Fall 1981 issue of Disney News magazine featured the Tencennial celebration of Walt Disney World.

Articles in the magazine provide overviews of Lake Buena Vista with its tennis, golf, conference facilities, and the Walt Disney World Village's dining and shopping; Walt Disney World as a "Living Laboratory" of unique ecological, transportation, and power systems; the Tencennial celebration itself, a "year long, and a smile wide" featuring parades, concerts, celebrities, fireworks, and shows; and memories shared by cast members who had worked there from the beginning.

But the best part of the magazine is the three-page article that steps through the highlights of Walt Disney World history, year-by-year. Let's take a look at some of the accomplishments and how things have changed over time.

1971:

• The Walt Disney World resort opens with much celebration and fanfare.
• America the Beautiful, Walt Disney World's first Circle Vision 360 feature premiers in November.
  • This show is later replaced with Magic Carpet Round the World, American Journeys, and The Timekeeper. Today the theater hosts the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor.
• Flight to the Moon opens in December.
  • This attraction has also been replaced several times. The show building has since housed Mission to Mars, ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter, and currently Stitch's Great escape.
• Christmas was celebrated with a Candlelight Processional narrated by Rock Hudson.
  • Today the Candlelight Processional is performed many times each year at the American Gardens Theatre in Epcot.
• Walt Disney World hosted its first golf tournament, won by Jack Nicklaus.

1972:

• If You Had Wings opened in June.
  • This show building would later hold If You Could Fly, Delta Dreamflight, Take Flight, and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. If You Could Fly and Take Flight were largely identical to their respective predecessors, but with minor changes due to loss of sponsorship.
• Attendance for the first full year of operation exceeded 10.7 million guests.

1973:

• The Golf Resort opens in December.
  • The resort would later be renamed The Disney Inn. It is now known as Shades of Green and operated by the US Department of Defense for use by active and retired military personnel.
• Pirates of the Caribbean opens in December.
  • This attraction was recently refurbished to include Captain Jack Sparrow and other characters from the movie franchise.
• The Walt Disney Story (closed), the Swan Boats (closed), Tom Sawyer Island, and the Richard F. Irvine steamboat (now the Liberty Belle) all open.
• President Richard Nixon visits the convention of Associated Press managing editors at the Contemporary.
  • This is where the famous "I am not a crook" line was spoken as Nixon defended his record in the Watergate case.

1974:

• Magic Carpet Round the World opens in the Circle Vision 360 theater in Tomorrowland.
• Pioneer Hall opens at Fort Wilderness.
• Discovery Island opens in Bay Lake.
  • Discovery Island closed in 1999 after the opening of Disney's Animal Kingdom.

Read All About It: Roller Coasters, Flumes, and Flying Saucers

Roller Coasters, Flumes, and Flying Saucers by Robert R. Reynolds is a look at the history of ride design company Arrow Development, as told through interviews by its founders Ed Morgan and Karl Bacon. The book is full of stories about rides for Disney parks, ventures with other parks, and interesting anecdotes about the general history of rides and roller coasters.

Ed and Karl met in a civilian Navy plant during World War II. Soon after they founded Arrow Development and began work machining parts for everything from crop dusters to Hewlett Packard machinery. Before they knew it, they were in the amusement park business. The first in a long line of revolutionary developments, the team built the first all-steel carousel.

It wasn't long after that a small boat, the Lil' Belle, that caught the eye of Disney. The boat was built for Lake Merritt Park in Oakland, California. Soon, Arrow Development was contracted to build ride systems for the soon-to-open Disneyland park. The team conceived and built the dark ride systems that we know today. The list of their early contributions include Mad Tea Party, Snow White's Adventure, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Casey Jr. Circus Train, Dumbo, Autopia, and Alice in Wonderland.

A later challenge was the Matterhorn. Here Arrow had other firsts in the amusement park business, including one that would revolutionize the roller coaster industry: tubular steel track.

Through the course of time, Arrow Development designed rides for Disneyland, the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair, and Walt Disney World. Their Disney credits go on to include It's a Small World, Flying Saucers, Pirates of the Caribbean, and development of the Omnimover. They worked with other theme parks, many of which failed, including Freedomland in New York, the Pacific Ocean Park in California, Knott's Berry Farm, and Busch Gardens. They had further revolutionary designs in the amusement park realm including the flume ride and the corkscrew loop. Along the way, they also had other projects such as designing capsules that would sustain monkeys sent into space.

The book is filled with stories about Arrow's interaction with Disney through the years: their transition to working for "movie people" instead of amusement park operators, Disney briefly owning an interest in the company, Karl getting sucked into the air system of the Flying Saucers, flooding out the Small World show pavilion at the World's Fair, and interacting with numerous Imagineers as they did what they did best.

In 1998, Ed Morgan and Karl Bacon were honored with the Hall of Fame Living Legends award by the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. They are the first to share the award, and the honor puts them in league with the likes of George Ferris, Walter Knott, and Walt Disney.

The Verdict: This book is a quick easy read, laid out almost entirely as interview answers by Ed and Karl. At times they often speak highly technically, which could cause the average reader (myself included) to not understand all of their jargon. But in the midst of this, is a long trail of great stories told by the men themselves -- stories about their hardships and successes, and stories about the people they worked with. It focuses mostly on their work with Disney, but does include many of their greatest achievements apart from their ties with Disney. This is not a book for everyone's shelf, but it is a must have for the collector or researcher of any theme or amusement park.