Back in 1964, Walt Disney came to Florida seeking a site for the most ambitious undertaking of his illustrious career — a grand city of tomorrow and entertainment complex.
Disney and a group of company executives traveling with him first looked at a rolling spread of land near Ocala. It was rejected for being too small.
Next, the task force looked at land near Silver Springs. “Walt didn’t like it at all,” said Disney executive Jack Sayers.
The following day, the group was flying over Central Florida in a company plane.
“We were over this big lake,” said Sayers. “Walt looked down, spotted an island in the lake, and said, ‘There’s Tom Sawyer’s Island. Buy it.’“
It was Bay Lake, now the site of Disney’s Contemporary Resort and just three minutes away from the Magic Kingdom’s entrance by the monorail that whisks guests through the enormous open lobby on the way to the park.
Using secret intermediaries, Disney began buying thousands of acres of Central Florida property — causing the local rumor mill to crank up.
Was McDonnell Douglas the buyer? Or Boeing? Was it David Rockefeller or Howard Hughes?
On Oct. 21, 1965, the Orlando Sentinel’s Emily Bavar broke the news that it was Walt Disney who was coming to Central Florida.
After interviewing Disney in California, she concluded he had to be behind the massive purchases in Orange and Osceola counties. While not confirming nor denying he was the buyer, Bavar said he possessed a lot of knowledge about Central Florida — a little too much knowledge.
The front-page headline was, “Is Our ‘Mystery’ Industry Disneyland?’ ” Bavar wrote, “I predict it will be an extension of Walt Disney’s magic empire of fiction, fantasy and enormous wealth.”
“In sticking my neck out with such indifference to caution, I’ll go even farther and say the ultimate plan for the spread of acreage is something that could be hatched only in the fertile Disney imagination; that it will be worth watching and waiting for,” she wrote.
Just to make sure folks were paying attention, days later, the Sentinel ran another front page story with the headline: “We Say: ‘Mystery’ Industry is Disney.”
Five days later, thenFlorida Gov. Haydon Burns confirmed what the Sentinel reported: That the 27,000 acres of sandy scrub oak and marsh was Disney’s land.
Walt Disney and his brother Roy came to Orlando on Nov. 16, 1965 to discuss their plans for the property at a press conference with 350 reporters.
“It’s going to be a world, a new, different kind of world,” Disney said, without offering a lot of detail.
One vision he did share was wanting to create a futuristic city that never stops building. He would later call it EPCOT – Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.
Unfortunately, Disney would die less than 14 months after announcing his big “Florida Project.”
With his death came a change of plans. EPCOT would be put on the back burner while focus shifted to creating a Disneylandlike theme park in Central Florida: the Magic Kingdom.
With Roy Disney at the helm, work got underway on creating the newly named Disney World. —
WALT DISNEY CO. PHOTOS
In his 1966 “Project Florida” film, shot just a few weeks before his death, Walt Disney talked about his plans for Disney World.
Left: “The most exciting, by far the most important part of our Florida project in fact the heart of everything we will be doing in Disney World — will be our Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow. We call it EPCOT,” he said.
Below: Walt Disney explains his vision for his Florida property and why he chose the area near Orlando.“We have a perfect location in Florida, almost in the very center of the state. In fact, we selected this site because it’s so easy for tourists and Florida residents to get here by automobile,” Disney said.
ORLANDO SENTINEL FILE
Former Orlando Sentinel editor Emily Bavar poses with Walt Disney in 1965 during a media visit to Disneyland.“I have never seen anyone look so stunned,” she later said about his reaction when asked if he was buying Florida land. In 1965, she wrote the story revealing that the Walt Disney Co. was the mystery industry buying land in Central Florida.
ORLANDO SENTINEL
Days after Emily Bavar’s big story that Walt Disney was coming to Central Florida, the Orlando Sentinel went all in on the prediction. “It will rank as one of the single greatest economic boosts in the history of Florida,” the newspaper reported on Oct. 24, 1965.
ORLANDO SENTINEL FILE
In November 1965, Walt Disney held a press conference in the Egyptian Room at the Cherry Plaza in Orlando that included his brother Roy and Florida Gov. Haydon Burns. Disney announced plans for Disney World and promised the theme park would be grander than Disneyland.
WALT DISNEY CO.
In November 1965, Walt Disney, in white, and company executive William Potter inspect the Central Florida property that will become the future home of Walt Disney World.
ORLANDO SENTINEL FILE
A view of Main Street, U.S.A., in May 1970, looking toward the park’s main railroad station. Old-fashioned facades will turn these steel skeletons into the Magic Kingdom’s iconic Main Street, complete with horse-drawn streetcars and a Penny Arcade.
WALT DISNEY CO.
This aerial view shows the Magic Kingdom under construction with the man-made Seven Seas Lagoon at bottom. The still rising Cinderella Castle can be seen in the center of the theme park.
ORLANDO SENTINEL FILE
This is a view of the dock and teen swimming pool while construction continues at the Contemporary Resort on Bay Lake. It was while flying over Bay Lake that Walt Disney proclaimed this to be the perfect spot for a whole new Disney world.
ORLANDO SENTINEL FILE
As a welder works on the construction of a restaurant in Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, Cinderella Castle rises toward its completion. The iconic structure would become the focal point for the theme park.
ED STOUT/ORLANDO SENTINEL
The monorail line through the A-frame Contemporary Resort nears completion. The Contemporary and the nearby Polynesian were the two original hotels for Walt Disney World when it opened in 1971.
ORLANDO SENTINEL FILE
Looking toward Cinderella Castle, the Magic Kingdom’s Main Street U.S.A. starts to take shape as workers scramble to get the theme park completed in time for its scheduled opening on Oct. 1, 1971.
ORLANDO SENTINEL FILE
The Haunted Mansion rises in this photo taken during its construction. The attraction has been a popular one since its opening at the Magic Kingdom.