The day after Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, many newspapers had a field day with the myriad of problems the park had, such as gas leaks, failing plumbing and a lack of drinking fountains. Some called it Walt's Folly and more. But that didn't seem to matter to the public because when the park opened its gates the next day, there was a long line of people waiting to get in - and the lines never ...

Changes at Disneyland in the 1980s started slow, then ended in a splash down a mountain. During the first couple years of the decade, Disney Imagineers were busy with the design and building of Epcot Center (as it was called then) at Walt Disney World. But they were also planning a project for Disneyland - rebuilding Fantasyland. 1980-83 In early 1982, most of Fantasyland was behind a ...

If it was in the West, it's here. The Mark Twain Riverboat docks at the aptly named Mark Twain Landing in Frontierland. The first train ride, apart from the Disneyland Railroad, was the Mine Train Thru Nature's Wonderland, opening in 1960; the Mine Train closed in 1977, and Big Thunder Mountain opened two years later. The two rides could not be more different. The Mine Train was a slow, relaxing ride ...

It is a place of improbable dreams, a 65-acre world drifted over with pixie dust. It is a place where Tinker Bell and Mary Poppins soar matter-of-factly through the evening sky, where Tom Sawyer plies his raft on the muddy Mississippi and the Lost Continent of Atlantis is cheek by jowl with the moon. It is, of course, Disneyland-Walt Disney's incredible pearl in the neon ugliness of Anaheim, Calif. As ...