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Disneyland is an American theme park located in Anaheim, California, owned and operated by the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts division of The Walt Disney Company. It was dedicated with a press preview on July 17, 1955, and opened to the general public on July 18, 1955. Disneyland holds the distinction of being the only theme park to be designed and built under the direct supervision of Walt Disney himself. As of 2005, the park has been visited by more than 515 million guests since it opened, including presidents, royalty and other heads of state. In 1998, the theme park was re-branded "Disneyland Park" to distinguish it from the larger Disneyland Resort complex. In 2007, more than 14,800,000 people visited the park making it the second most visited park in the world, behind the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World.

The dedication to all Disney magic kingdom-style parks begins with the phrase "To all who come to this happy place, welcome ..." with the exception of Magic Kingdom Park in Florida. The dedication there begins "Walt Disney World is a tribute to the philosophy and life of Walter Elias Disney ..."

Dedication

"To all who come to this happy place: -Welcome- Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past ... and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America ... with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world."—Walter E. Disney, July 17, 1955 4:43pm

History

Concept and construction

The concept for Disneyland began one Sunday, when Walt Disney was visiting Griffith Park with his daughters Diane and Sharon. While watching his daughters ride the Merry-Go-Round he came up with the idea of a place where adults and their children could go and have fun together. His dream would lie dormant for many years. Walt Disney's father helped build the grounds of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. This perhaps gave Disney the creative spark whence Disneyland originated. The Midway Plaisance somewhat apart from the Exposition grounds included a cheaply constructed set of individual "Country" areas from around the world and areas representing various time periods of man; it also included many "rides" including the first Ferris wheel, sky ride, a passenger train that circled the perimeter, Wild West Show, etc. Although the 1893 World's Fair was meant only to last a summer in Chicago, in Southern California the weather was accommodating to a "Fair Grounds" of stucco buildings that would otherwise disintegrate in the rain, snow and ice of other climates. One can see the resemblance of a "Land" filled with "rides" and a fairgrounds with differently themed areas to the Disneyland created 60 years later in the 1950s as the population of America for the first time shifted West into desert climes..

While many people had written letters to Walt Disney about visiting the Disney Studio, he realized that a functional movie studio had little to offer to the visiting fans. This began to foster ideas of building a site near his Burbank studios for tourists to visit. His ideas then evolved to a small play park with a boat ride and other themed areas. Walt's initial concept, his "Mickey Mouse Park", started with an 8 acres (0.012 sq mi; 0.032 km 2 ) plot across Riverside Drive. Walt started to visit other parks for inspiration and ideas, including Tivoli Gardens, Greenfield Village, The Efteling, Tilburg , Playland, and Children's Fairyland. He started his designers working on concepts, but these would grow into a project much larger than could be contained in 8 acres (32,000 m 2 ).

Walt hired a consultant, Harrison Price from Stanford Research Institute, to gauge the proper area to locate the theme park based on the area's potential growth. With the report from Price, Disney acquired 160 acres (0.250 sq mi; 0.647 km 2 ) of orange groves and walnut trees in Anaheim, southeast of Los Angeles in neighboring Orange County.

Difficulties in obtaining funding prompted Disney to investigate new methods of fundraising. He decided to use television to get the ideas into people's homes, and so he created a show named Disneyland which was broadcast on the then-fledgling ABC television network. In return, the network agreed to help finance the new park. For the first five years of its operation, Disneyland was owned by Disneyland, Inc., which was jointly owned by Walt Disney Productions, Walt Disney, Western Publishing and ABC. In 1960 Walt Disney Productions purchased ABC's share (it had earlier bought out Western Publishing and Walt Disney). In addition, many of the shops on Main Street, U.S.A. were owned and operated by other companies who rented space from Disney.

Construction began on July 16, 1954 and would cost USD$17 million to complete, and was opened exactly one year later. U.S. Route 101 (later Interstate 5) was under construction at the same time just to the north of the site; in preparation for the traffic which Disneyland was expected to bring, two more lanes were added to the freeway even before the park was finished.

1955: Opening day

Disneyland Park was opened to the public on Monday, July 18, 1955. However, a special "International Press Preview" event was held on Sunday, July 17, 1955, which was only open to invited guests and the media. The Special Sunday events, including the dedication, were televised nationwide and anchored by three of Walt Disney's friends from Hollywood: Art Linkletter, Bob Cummings, and Ronald Reagan. ABC broadcast the event live on its network; at the time, it was one of the largest and most complex live broadcasts ever.

The event did not go smoothly. The park was overcrowded as the by-invitation-only affair was plagued with counterfeit tickets. All major roads nearby were empty. The temperature was an unusually high 101 °F (38 °C), and a plumbers' strike left many of the park's drinking fountains dry. Disney was given a choice of having working fountains or running toilets and he chose the latter. This, however, generated negative publicity since Pepsi sponsored the park's opening; enraged guests believed the inoperable fountains were a cynical way to sell soda. The asphalt that had been poured just that morning was so soft that ladies' high-heeled shoes sank in. Vendors ran out of food. A gas leak in Fantasyland caused Adventureland, Frontierland, and Fantasyland to close for the afternoon. Parents were throwing their children over the shoulders of crowds to get them onto rides such as the King Arthur Carrousel.

The park got such bad press for the event day that Walt Disney invited members of the press back for a private "second day" to experience the true Disneyland, after which Walt held a party in the Disneyland Hotel for them. Walt and his 1955 executives forever referred to the day as "Black Sunday". Every year on July 17, cast members wear pin badges stating how many years it has been since July 17, 1955. For example, in 2004 they wore the slogan "The magic began 49 years ago today." But for the first twelve to fifteen years, Disney did officially state that opening day was on July 18, including in the park's own publications. Disneyland referred to July 17, 1955, as "Dedication Day" in one of its July, 1967, press releases.

On Monday July 18, crowds started to gather in line as early as 2 a.m., and the first person to buy a ticket and enter the park was David MacPherson with admission ticket number 2, as Roy O. Disney arranged to pre-purchase ticket number 1. Walt Disney had an official photo taken with two children instead, Christine Vess Watkins (age 5 in 1955) and Michael Schwartner (age 7 in 1955), and the photo of the two carries a deceptive caption along the lines of "Walt Disney with the first two guests of Disneyland." Vess Watkins and Schwartner both received lifetime passes to Disneyland that day, and MacPherson was awarded one shortly thereafter, which was later expanded to every single Disney-owned park in the world.

In September 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev spent thirteen days in the United States. On his visit Khrushchev had two requests: to visit Disneyland and to meet John Wayne, Hollywood's top box-office draw. Due to the Cold War tension and security concerns, he was famously denied an excursion to Disneyland.

1990s transition: Park becomes Resort

In the late 1990s, work began to expand on the one-park, one-hotel property. Disneyland Park, the Disneyland Hotel and the site of the original parking lot as well as acquired surrounding properties were earmarked to become part of a greater vacation resort development. The new components of this resort were to be another theme park, Disney's California Adventure Park; a shopping, dining and entertainment complex, Downtown Disney; a remodeled Disneyland Hotel; Disney's Grand Californian Hotel; and the acquisition of t

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