Rare works of art from Disneyland craftsmen unveiled in a new exhibit

The Walt Disney Company likes to revive Walt Disney’s famous saying that the empire was “started by a mouse.” But when it comes to Disneyland, its theme park that became a SoCal institution, fans and history buffs crave details.

New gallery in San Francisco Walt Disney Family Museum Aiming to chart the beginnings and early development of the Anaheim Resort, it begins with a trip Disney took with friend, animator, and fellow train enthusiast Ward Kimball to Chicago. The Midwestern city, as many know, is Disney’s birthplace, but in 1948, he and Kimball embarked on a vacation at a railroad show in that city.

At the festival, they enjoyed not only the locomotives, but also the Abraham Lincoln impersonator, and the expansive grounds that included small re-creations of a frontier town and a Native American village, elements that would eventually make their way to Disneyland. While in Chicago, the duo stopped at what is now the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, home to a re-creation A city street at the turn of the century.

By the time the ride was over, Disney’s vision for Disneyland was beginning to take shape. Within days of his return to Los Angeles, Disney wrote a memo recording his ideas for what would eventually appear at Disneyland, including a train, a theme park, and a variety of antique shops.

So maybe it’s more accurate to say that with Disneyland, it all started with a vacation in Chicago.

The museum exhibit, “The Happiest Place on Earth: The Story of Disneyland,” is based on a similarly titled book by animation producer Don Hahn and theme park designer-turned-historian Christopher Merritt. Considered a kind of best companion to the coffee-table tomb, the Museum’s Demo is an indispensable look into Disneyland’s history, a work that brings together never-before-seen conceptual art and highlights many of the park’s lesser-known designers.

The exhibit and book coincide with Disneyland’s 70th anniversary. The former adds to and complements the museum’s mission of preserving Walt Disney’s legacy, showcasing the park’s patriarch as a leader who built Disneyland with the help of creatives throughout Hollywood.

Spanning across two lower-level galleries, the exhibition also includes a short film from Hahn, a film that focuses largely on the Chicago tour. The exhibition, which runs through May, unfolds as a kind of walk around the park. Portions are devoted to Disneyland lands past and present — the exhibit includes the defunct “Indian Village,” an aspect of Frontierland that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s — but rather than trying to capture the park as a whole, the museum focuses on rarely seen conceptual art from Disneyland’s various artisans.

The exhibition’s centerpiece is a rarely revived pencil drawing of Fantasyland from Bruce Bushman, who created pre-opening concept art for the land inspired by Marvin Davis’ master plans. You’ll see a small train roller coaster, a small Ferris wheel, and a circus area, complete with a large statue of a clown that will soar above guests. It’s very different from the Renaissance-inspired beginnings and European Village look of today, but it’s also emblematic of how Disneyland was never fully created and was gradually replicated before it opened in July 1955.

More of Bushman’s art is on display elsewhere, particularly his depiction of Pirates of the Caribbean as a wax museum. In the mid-1950s, before it was decided that the attraction would be a boat ride, it was envisioned as a walk-through experience complete with indoor shops and a large battle scene. Hahn, who served as co-curator of the exhibit, noted on a tour of the museum’s artifacts that Bushman was working on “The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” at a time when he was also devising plans for Disneyland.

“There are remnants of what the journey became,” Hahn says, noting the map’s depiction of tunnels and sandy areas containing hidden loot. “There are fights, and you have to cross a rickety bridge over a swamp that might have crocodiles in it. This drawing, in particular, is really special, to see the original white pencil drawing. Again, Bruce Bushman, here’s a guy who does ‘Mickey Mouse Club’ sets, but he also does this deep stuff.”

Earlier, the exhibition pays special attention to prominent Southern California landscape architect Ruth Schellhorn. It was hired only four months before the park opened but is credited with improving pedestrian flow and crafting parks that facilitated transitions between the central core of Disneyland and its lands.

“We built the garden as we went along,” reads one of Schellhorn’s quotes used in the book and exhibition and pulled from the Schellhorn Archives at the University of California Library. “I doubt that this procedure could have been followed so successfully in any other enterprise on earth; but this was Disneyland, a kind of fairyland, and Walt’s belief that the impossible is a simple order of the day, so inculcated in everyone such a spirit that they never ceased to think that it could not be done.”

Costume designer Renee Connelly, who worked on films such as “The Great Hunter” and “Cleopatra,” is also featured. Her work is displayed in the main street fronting areas of the park, and is Victorian, regal and somewhat fanciful in style. For example, a yellow and white dress looks full of movement, and is equally suitable for a tea party or dance.

Hahn says a key element of the book and exhibit is the desire to focus on some of the important contributors to Disneyland who may not be household names to park fans. “Let’s tell the human story of this,” Hahn says. “All the crazy people who worked on this in an unbelievable short period of time. That attracted me.”

There are also artworks on display of abandoned concepts, such as a never-built Chinese restaurant with a robot host envisioned for Main Street, as well as alternative visions of the introductory land. Included in the exhibit are some early designs for “It’s a Small World” from beloved animator turned theme park designer Mark Davis. This was before the decision was made to craft the ride in the look and tone of artist Mary Blair, and Davis’s mini-concepts have a more refined look – a London cartoon, for example, rather than a children’s playground.

Also rare: a scale model of a tramp wagon from Rollie Crump, who worked on the Haunted Mansion, the Enchanted Tiki Room, and Small World, among other projects. Crumb is responsible, for example, for the strange facade of It’s a Small World. The carriage, with mysterious designs inspired by fortune-telling, was created for the Museum of the Strange that was never built, which would have been located next to the Haunted Mansion. Crump’s son, Chris, says it may be one of the only surviving designs from that project.

Overall, the exhibit not only shows the beginnings of Disneyland, but shows how the park became an ever-evolving artistic project.

“It’s important,” says Hahn, when asked for these thoughts on why Disneyland not only endures, but remains a pilgrimage for so many. Theme parks allow us to explore stories and fairy tales in a multi-dimensional space – an escape, yes, but also a reflection of the narratives that define culture. It’s a source of renewal, Hahn adds. “It’s not just kids stuff,” he says. “It’s important for our mental health.”

Because when you go to Densiland, Hahn says, “You’re not thinking about your gas bill or your child’s education or how you can’t afford to live paycheck to paycheck. It’s not cheap. It’s not a cheap day. But we still go because our hope is to get something we can’t get in everyday life. To me, that’s human renewal, the ability to be inspired and get out of our heads for a while.”