Extra Secret Stories of Walt Disney World
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Marineland, the world’s first “oceanarium,” located near St. Augustine and Daytona Beach, opened on June 23, 1938. It was the first opportunity that most people had to view aquatic life in an approximation of their natural habitat. An aquarium generally separates different fish, but the oceanarium had two large tanks holding over 10,000 fish connected by a flume. Guests could use over two hundred portholes just below the surface of the water to view the activity.
Originally, the venue was meant to help film “underwater movies” but proved to be much more financially successful as a tourist attraction. It shut down between 1942–1945 when the Coast Guard used the tanks for research, including the development of shark repellents. When it reopened to the general public in 1946, it soon introduced the popular “educated porpoises” show in 1951. It inspired filmmaker Ivan Tors to open a studio in Miami where he produced the famous Flipper television series.
Marineland tried to keep its methods of operation secret, even protecting some of them with patents, but soon other attractions like the Miami Seaquarium, the Gulfarium of Fort Walton Beach, Neptune’s Garden (Marathon), and Ocean World (Fort Lauderdale) copied them, culminating with the opening of SeaWorld.
The Bok “Singing” Tower opened February 1, 1929, near Lake Wales. The two-hundred-foot tower on the summit of Iron Mountain which is 324 feet high was commissioned by Edward Bok as a gift to the people of America.
It has been referred to as the Taj Mahal of America and is composed of Florida coquina rock and Georgia marble and houses one of the world’s finest carillons of seventy bells ranging in weight from just a few pounds to eleven tons.
Tourists visit not just for the unique musical performances but the forty-eight acres of beautifully landscaped grounds.
Silver Springs in Ocala is really a vast subterranean river lying fifty feet below the surface that goes through a cavern sixty-five feet wide and opens up to form the head of the springs. In 1878, Huliam Jones created the first glass-bottom boat by installing a window on the flat bottom of a dugout canoe.
It was a popular location for filmmakers because of the clarity of the water. Among other films, six Tarzan movies, The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), and more than a hundred episodes of the television series Sea Hunt starring Lloyd Bridges were shot there.
Over the decades, many additions were made to the park including a reptile institute and a deer park.
Before Walt Disney World opened, the top three roadside tourist attractions in Florida were, in order, Cypress Gardens, Bok Tower, and Silver Springs.
Perhaps the most prominent pre-existing Florida entertainment venue that most directly effected both Disneyland and Walt Disney World was Cypress Gardens.
When Walt Disney was planning Disneyland in the 1950s, he sent out people to look at different places to get ideas about what worked and what didn’t work and why and report back to him. One of those trips was taken by his older brother Roy to visit Cypress Gardens in Florida.
The flamboyant Dick Pope (Richard Downing Pope, born in 1908), who founded Cypress Gardens, was in charge of the Central Florida Orange Festival that same year and arranged for the appearance of the Disney costumed characters. The rental cost was a sizeable fee of $8,320 for the length of the event.
Pope discussed a surprise visit in an interview with Orlando magazine publisher Edward Prizer in 1976:
Well, on about the third day of the exhibit, Roy Disney walked into my office and introduced himself. And I said to myself, “Oh my gosh, I can’t afford to pay him his $8,000 right now. He’ll have to wait until after the event when we have taken in some money.”
What he really wanted was to see the gardens and the shows. And when he’d done that he came in and began to ask me some questions—technical and financial questions. I answered some of them and sent him up to see our bookkeeper for his more detailed questions about financing.
Three or four days later he came by before he left and asked if he could call his brother Walt. I got up to leave the room and he said not to leave, that I might enjoy what he was going to say.
He said, “Walt, you know that project we’ve been talking about so long? Well, there’s a fellow here by the name of Pope who’s got a tourist attraction 100 miles from nowhere way up in the woods of central Florida. All he’s got is some flowers and water skiers and he’s bringing in 1,500 to 4,000 people a day. We’ll discuss the project when I get back.”
Soon afterward, Disneyland was announced. Roy was impressed that people were paying good money to walk around a garden, stop for photos with costumed characters, ride in a boat along the serene waterways, and watch entertaining shows.
Pope’s friendship with the Disney brothers grew because he was so enthusiastic and open, especially about increasing tourism in Florida. Later, when Walt was looking at property in Florida to build the Florida Project, Pope reminded Walt of the story. Roy denied it had happened that way, but Walt agreed with Pope that it was how he remembered the story, as well.
Walt told Pope that it was always a struggle to teach Roy about the value of aesthetic things and that Cypress Gardens was never just flowers and water skiers but gorgeous flowers and fantastic women on water skis.
Created in Winter Haven by entrepreneur Pope, who was known for being an effective Florida tourism promoter, Cypress Gardens opened on January 2, 1936, and closed on September 23, 2009, when it became part of Merlin Entertainment’s LEGOLAND Florida park that opened in 2011. Originally, it was 16 acres, but eventually grew to more than 200 acres.
In 1963, Cypress Gardens was tied with the Grand Canyon as the top tourist destination in the United States.
U.S. Highway 27 was the main route through the state, and it brought tourists almost to Cypress Gardens’ doorstep as Dick Pope had planned when he bought land on Lake Eloise surrounded by majestic cypress trees for a pittance.
With his wife, Julie, he built a quaint mix of botanical gardens that grew to more than 8,000 varieties from 90 different countries, beautiful young women attired as Southern belles in hoop skirts who graciously interacted with guests, and elaborate water ski shows which led to the park being billed as the Water Ski Capital of the World. Fifty water skiing world records were broken at the park.
In 1936, Pope began charging 25 cents for admission to the botanical park he and his wife had coaxed from 16 acres of Polk County swamp. Pope knew nothing about flora, but thankfully, his wife did. In 1938, he added electric boats for guests to leisurely tour the beautiful landscaping.
Over the years, Cypress Gardens grew to include a topiary trail, a butterfly conservatory with more than 1,000 butterflies, the biblical garden with plants named in the Bible, wild animal shows, an elaborate model train layout, and other attractions that captured the spirit of Old Florida and avoided a carnival atmosphere present at other Florida roadside entertainment venues.
Pope’s tireless marketing efforts led to Cypress Gardens appearing on the covers of hundreds of magazines and in newspaper photographs across the country, often including top celebrities enjoying the park, like Esther Williams, Bette Davis, President John F. Kennedy, Johnny Carson, and even Elvis Presley. Pope helped establish the “fun in the sun” personality of Florida and built up tourism there after World War II.
Cypress Gardens became a popular setting for commercials, television shows, and films. Miss Floridas and Miss Americas made it one of their stops after being crowned, since it was a terrific photo opportunity and guaranteed to draw large crowds. Cypress Gardens appeared in more than 500 newsreels and 75 short promotional films.
The Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA) annually gives out the Dick Pope All-Florida Grand Golden Image Award for best PR program in the state.
Jo Farmer, executive director of the Osceola County Convention and Visitors Bureau, said when Pope died in 1988:
He set the stage for the exposure of Florida worldwide. That was his claim to fame. There wasn’t any place in the world you could go and not hear about Flor
ida. He pretty much wrote the book.
At the same time, Dick Nunis, who was then president of Walt Disney Attractions, said:
Dick Pope Sr. was a great Floridian and one of the outstanding men in the entertainment world. He will always be known as “Mr. Florida.” He will be truly missed by the people and will be remembered as one of the pioneers of entertainment in this century.
When Walt Disney announced the construction of Walt Disney World in 1965, Pope was supportive, believing that anything that brought more visitors to Florida was only going to help his business and the other Florida businesses. Pope took out an ad in the newspaper and appeared in a short film shown on local Florida television stations welcoming Walt Disney World.
Pope said:
When reporters worried that Disney would undermine the tourism business in their respective towns, Walt pointed to a full-page ad we had bought welcoming the Disney organization to Florida. It said that Disney was the best thing to happen to us since sunshine.
The immediate effect of the opening of the Magic Kingdom in Orlando was a massive increase in tourism.
Cypress Gardens reported that by June 1972, just nine months after the Magic Kingdom had opened, its business had increased 38 percent, with expectations for the summer months to be “something that Florida will long remember.”
Cape Canaveral stated that visitors taking tours of the space facility increased more than 27 percent in just the first four months of 1972. During that same time period, St. Augustine recorded a 29 percent increase in visitors. Even Silver Springs, with its gentle glass-bottomed boat tour, saw an increase of visitors of 28 percent within the first quarter of 1972.
Increased tourism (and the sales taxes) resulted in a surplus for Florida’s general revenue fund of $207 million by the start of the summer of 1972. The legislature used almost $100 million on long-delayed building programs and still kept a $50 million working surplus fund.
Comptroller Fred Dickinson Jr. stated:
We’ve only seen the beginning of this whole upswing. We have just begun to realize the effects of Walt Disney World and when the full impact is felt, even the most optimistic predictions will fall short.
There are many technical and lengthy documents statistically reporting and analyzing the full economic impact, but suffice it to say, the bottom line was that Walt Disney World’s impact in the Orlando area that first year was much greater than anyone had anticipated. As they say, a rising tide lifts all the boats.
Orlando Mayor Carl T. Langford publicly stated:
I think it’s the greatest thing that’s happened since the city got its charter 100 years ago. The benefits greatly outweigh what few problems are caused. I don’t believe there’s a mayor in the United States who wouldn’t be delighted to have Disney World open up outside his door.
Over the initial years after the Magic Kingdom opened, travel patterns began to change significantly. People took shorter trips and because of the gas shortages of the early 1970s, focused on just going to Walt Disney World without venturing south to explore Cypress Gardens or other options.
Tourists no longer continued down to Miami, but stopped in central Florida to enjoy Walt Disney World and then went home.
Yet, the always optimistic Pope still proclaimed the value of Disney in Florida in 1976:
It’s fantastic. Maybe 60 percent of our visitors go to Disney first. And I don’t blame them. Disney’s made Florida the No. 1 vacation spot in the world. Our business is up every year. And how can you fail with people who are happy? I think as long as we show Southern hospitality, they’ll continue to come.
You know, there was a period that we didn’t, but I think that’s gone by the board, largely due to the fact that when Disney opened they hired girls who walked around telling people where things were and they talked to people. And then those people started talking to other people.
And when you get people talking, you get them happy, and then you’ve got it made. They’ll come back again and again. And they’ll tell other people about it.
Disney’s guest relations’ policies influenced the industry as has its guidelines for family entertainment. One thing you can count on them for, and we at Cypress Gardens believe it is the one fundamental part of the business, is good taste. When you have that you have a force that assures you of continuous profits.
The lifetime of an attraction is putting in new things. It’s constant growth that makes success in the business and with Disney you’ll see not only the ordinary tourist, but an increase in the number of business people who come to central Florida. Why does a lady go to a furniture store? To see what’s new and EPCOT will have the same effect on the business community when it opens soon.
Pope was quite the showman and used to wear suits that were banana-colored, coral-colored, or lime-colored. One of his frequent outfits was a turquoise suit, trimmed in pink, worn with bright white shoes. He would wear bright red jackets with checked ties.
He had many nicknames including Mr. Florida, Mr. Water Skiing, Grand Poobah of Publicity, Maharaja of Muck, and the Swami of the Swamp. He sometimes dressed in a swami costume and stated “I predict a great future for Florida.”
Pope was inspired to create Cypress Gardens when his wife showed him a magazine article in a 1930s issue of Good Housekeeping about a South Carolina banker charging people $2 each to view the landscaped gardens around his mansion home. In three months, he had made $36,000. Pope consulted with photographer Robert Dahlgren to make sure Cypress Gardens was laid out in such a way that no matter where a tourist pointed his camera, the view would be appealing.
Bill Sims, who worked for Pope in Cypress Gardens’ marketing department, stated in 1988:
Fifty years ago rural Polk County was rural. The 1964 New York World’s Fair officials contacted Pope to help boost sagging attendance at its Florida pavilion. Florida was at the bottom. They contacted Pope and asked, “How can we solve the attendance problem?” He said, “We need to put on a water ski show.” The idea worked. The Florida pavilion went from almost dead last to being one of the top.
In 1985, the Pope family sold the business to publisher Harcourt Brace Jovanovich for $23 million. After some major improvements, HBJ sold it to Busch Entertainment Corporation in 1989, who built more shops and amusements. In 1995, Busch sold Cypress Gardens to the park’s own management team who were unable to compete with the other central Florida attractions, especially since they were almost an hour’s drive from Walt Disney World. The park closed in 2009.
LEGOLAND Florida opened on October 15, 2011. One of its sections incorporates most of the historic botanical gardens of Pope’s old park—and, in fact, that section is named Cypress Gardens. Some of the topiaries and Southern belles gave way to LEGO brick structures of those items. Even the water ski shows now feature block characters. Yet, this odd combination has allowed one of Florida’s most significant Florida tourism icons to survive.
Disney has had a long relationship with LEGO. In 1999, LEGO released their first licensed toy line with a Winnie the Pooh Duplo sub-theme. Mickey Mouse was introduced in 2000 followed by other Disney characters.
As late as 1983, Disney was still in discussions with LEGO to help fund the proposed Denmark pavilion that was to be located where the Norway pavilion is today in World Showcase at Epcot. In fact, LEGO was so close to signing that Disney built the outdoors bathrooms for the Danish pavilion to be available at the October 1982 opening, since the infrastructure was in place and it would be more expensive to build it later.
When Disney was contemplating a fifth theme park for Walt Disney World, one of the proposals was a LEGO area aimed at young guests and themed to Disney animated environments, like the fictional sultanate of Agrabah from Aladdin (1992).
Disney was looking at the Splendid China theme park that had opened near Walt Disney World in 1993, featuring miniature replicas of historic Chinese buildings and was looking to see if it could steal any tourists that went there with its LEGO park of Disney m
iniatures. Once Disney saw that the new theme park was not doing well, it shifted its focus to other proposals, including one that would have been a park of thrill rides themed to Disney villains.
The Sunshine State was a pretty entertaining place before the Mouse opened up his house in 1971. All of these roadside attractions offered a different and fun experience for travelers. Especially in the mid-20th century, when most people took trips in their car rather than by airplane, Florida was a brief and often exotic escape from the travails of daily life and supplied unforgettable memories for children of all ages.
About the Author
Jim Korkis is an internationally respected Disney historian who has written hundreds of articles and over twenty books about all things Disney over the last forty years. Jim grew up in Glendale, California, where he was able to meet and interview Walt’s original team of animators and Imagineers.
Jim loves Walt Disney World. This is the fourth book in a series that reveals rarely told and never-told tales as well as correcting mis-told stories.
In 1995, he relocated to Orlando, Florida, where he worked for Walt Disney World in a variety of capacities including Entertainment, Animation, Disney Institute, Disney University, College and International Programs, Disney Cruise Line, Disney Design Group, Disney Vacation Club, and Marketing.
His original research on Disney history has been used often by the Disney company as well as the Disney Family Museum and other organizations.
Several websites currently frequently feature Jim’s articles about Disney history:
MousePlanet.com
AllEars.net
Yesterland.com
CartoonResearch.com
YourFirstVisit.net
In addition, Jim is a frequent guest on multiple podcasts as well as a consultant and keynote speaker to various businesses, schools, and groups.