The Backstories and Magical Secrets of Walt Disney World

by Christopher E Smith

  —Walt Disney (referencing Disneyland’s Frontierland)

  Frontierland celebrates the pioneer spirit of America, and offers a somewhat humorous look at the Old Midwest, the Old West, and in one conspicuous instance, the Old South. Although grounded in true United States history, Frontierland offers a much more fanciful and comedic outlook on that history than its Magic Kingdom neighbor Liberty Square. Frontierland presents a rose-colored view of the American frontier that has become a large part of American pop culture by virtue of decades of Western feature films, television series, books, and other media

  Like Liberty Square, Frontierland grew in large part out of Walt Disney’s love for America. In Walt’s own words, “All of us have cause to be proud of our country’s history, shaped by the pioneering spirit of our forefathers.” In designing Frontierland, the Disney company worked to incorporate this pioneering spirit into everything that guests experience in the land. As the Imagineers describe it:

  It is the perfect embodiment of the wonder of the unknown and the quest to discover it, whether it be by land, water, or rail. It’s also a time of endless summers and lazy rivers. Stay awhile, and you’ll see why so many folks choose to call Frontierland “home.”

  [The Imagineers, The Imagineering Field Guide to the Magic Kingdom (2005), p. 51.]

  Frontierland is home to not just one, but two headliner attractions and members of the famed “Disney mountains”: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain. These fan-favorite attractions are joined by classic Disney experiences like Country Bear Jamboree and Tom Sawyer Island, and numerous dining and retail options to create one of the most popular lands in the Magic Kingdom. Notwithstanding this popularity and the thousands of guests visiting Frontierland each day, many are oblivious to the fact that the land is filled with intricate backstories and storytelling props that go much further than just a generic “Old West” theme. These stories include tales of a trail boss known as “Texas” John Slaughter, a dusty “Boot Hill” firing range, and the greatest Disney theme park concept that never came to be.

  Backstory

  The backstory of Frontierland is really a continuation of the tale that began in Liberty Square. It is the story of the growth of the United States, from the initial struggle for independence in the 1700s in Liberty Square through the westward expansion of the 1800s represented in Frontierland. As discussed below, the architecture of the buildings and structures in Frontierland help to convey this theme from a storytelling perspective. In an effort to accurately frame that collective story, Disney Imagineers made the strategic decision when designing the layout of the Magic Kingdom to make Frontierland the only land not directly accessible from the central hub. Guests travelling to Frontierland must enter through either Adventureland or, more appropriately for storytelling purposes, from Liberty Square.

  In 1970, Disney issued a colorful marketing booklet named “Preview Edition: Walt Disney World ‘The Vacation Kingdom of the World.’” It provided beautiful artistic renderings and detailed descriptions of the various resorts, amenities, and entertainment offerings that were coming soon to the massive Florida project. It also provided readers with an entertaining preview of the various attractions and experiences they could expect at the Magic Kingdom, broken down for each of its six theme park lands. For Frontierland specifically, the booklet gave the following brief backstory:

  Frontierland will relive the Old West much as it was a century ago when hardy pioneers first explored the wilderness. A steam-powered stern-wheeler, keel boats and log rafts will cruise the frontier rivers of America.

  This backstory grew from Disneyland’s original version of Frontierland. Walt Disney himself provided a detailed overview of both the backstory and theming of the Disneyland original:

  Frontierland is a tribute to the faith, courage, and ingenuity of the pioneers who blazed the trails across America. It is to those hardy pioneers—men and women of vision, faith, and courage—that we have dedicated Frontierland.

  Here you can return to frontier America from the Revolutionary War era to the final taming of the great Southwest. Our adventures are designed to give you the feeling of having lived, even for a short while, during our country’s pioneer days.

  Another take on the Frontierland backstory can be heard on the Liberty Belle when Sam Clemens narrates this brief history lesson as the riverboat departs from Liberty Square:

  That rivertown we are passing is Frontierland. A few years back it was no more than a boom town carved out of the wilderness by a handful of settlers looking to start a new life. Today, gentility and decorum are running rampant. Oh, it still has its share of footloose trappers, keel boaters, prospectors, and an Indian or two. But mostly its flush times and well on its way to becoming a fine big city.

  The overarching theme of Frontierland, that of America’s great westward expansion, is conveyed to guests by variety of numerous storytelling elements found throughout the land.

  Storytelling Elements

  Frontierland Architecture

  The building façades in Frontierland continue the chronological and geographic transition that began in Liberty Square. These structures reflect the passage of time from the late 1700s to the late 1800s, and a geographic transition from east to west.

  This transition begins in Liberty Square with the Diamond Horseshoe. This fanciful structure represents St. Louis from the early 1800s, “when this booming Missouri town marked the end of the East and the beginning of the frontier.” The building’s ornate trim, brass fixtures, and bright colors provide an eye-catching symbolic transition from the civilized cities of the East to the rustic wilderness of the West.

  As you travel into Frontierland, you encounter a series of buildings on the left including the Frontierland Shootin’ Arcade, the Frontier Trading Post, and the Frontier Mercantile. These buildings are more rustic than the Diamond Horseshoe, and are composed of log, wood plank, and stone façades, respectively. However, the buildings are far from “unkempt,” and represent border towns that spread into the western frontier.

  Farther down the street is Country Bear Jamboree, housed in a rustic building (“Grizzly Hall”) constructed of logs. The building pays homage to the great log structures of the Pacific Northwest. Signage for Country Bear Jamboree dates the building to “1898.” Nearby, a town hall serves as one of the façades for the Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Café. The façade is composed of brick and wood construction and has a more Southwestern influence. It is stamped with the year “1867.”

  Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is one of the most stunning sights in the Magic Kingdom. The attraction is themed as a large mountain straight out of Arizona’s Monument Valley following the end of the great Gold Rush of the mid 1800s.

  The one thematic outlier in Frontierland is Splash Mountain, which represents Reconstruction-era Georgia, the setting for the film that inspired the attraction, Song of the South (1946).

  When observing the structures in Frontierland, it is important to note that each of the geographic regions represented are “each tied into different bits of American folklore”:

  We see the wooded frontier of Davy Crockett, the southern banks of the Mighty Mississippi recalling the world of Tom Sawyer, the Southwestern U.S.—identified with the tall tales of Pecos Bill and American legends represented in the propping inside his Café—and Big Thunder Mountain’s abandoned ghost town left behind after the Great Gold Rush of 1849.

  The Diamond Horseshoe

  The Diamond Horseshoe is a table-service restaurant that serves up all you can eat helpings of barbeque pork, turkey, smoked sausage, and braised beef. Even though the restaurant is technically in Liberty Square, I am including it with the Frontierland discussion because I feel it is the key transitional element from east to west. The saloon is two stories tall and consists of wood plank construction that has been painted blue and outlined with white trim. A large, fanciful sign hangs on the front of the restaurant and reads “The Diamond Horseshoe” in golden le
tters. As a whole, the exterior façade of the Diamond Horseshoe is warm and inviting.

  The interior is breathtaking, and is themed as a dramatic two-story dance hall. It is filled with intricately detailed woodwork and numerous brass furnishings. A beautiful second-story balcony wraps around the outer edge of the interior of the restaurant in a rough horseshoe shape. A grand center stage with red curtains sits at the far end of the dining area. The interior of the Diamond Horseshoe is lush and elegant, a far cry from the theming of rustic Frontierland buildings that are located farther down the street.

  The saloon is filled with magical secrets that continue the theme of America’s westward expansion.

  Its signage includes a golden horseshoe (the name of the establishment in Disneyland) with a bright diamond sitting within its prongs.

  A large chandelier that adds to the ambiance of the restaurant illuminates the interior. Numerous vintage photographs of actors, actresses, and singers decorate the walls.

  A large framed sign sits on the corner of the stage and advertises “The World Famous Self-Playing Piano,” which comes “DIRECT FROM A TOUR OF THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS FAIRS AND EXPOSITIONS!” The large piano sits in the center of the stage. It is labeled a “Wurlitzer” and is a beautiful eye-catching visual feature. Unfortunately, the piano itself no longer plays for guests.

  In its early days, the Diamond Horseshoe was much more than just a place for hungry guests to grab a bite to eat. Instead, the building was home to an elaborate stage show known as the Diamond Horseshoe Revue. In Walt Disney World: A Pictorial Souvenir Featuring the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT Center, Disney described the Diamond Horseshoe Revue as follows:

  For the most rip-roarin’ entertainment in St. Louis, stop in at “The Diamond Horseshoe Revue.” Hosted by Slue Foot Sue, a pistol-packin’ chanteuse, this rollicking show features high-kicking can-can dancers, a rowdy frontier comic and a dashing solider of fortune.

  Tom Sawyer Island

  Tom Sawyer Island is a massive outdoor playground that pays homage to the adventurous title character of Mark Twain’s 1876 literary masterpiece, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In a world of cell phones and laptops, FastPass+ and My Disney Experience, advanced dining reservations and motion simulators, Tom Sawyer Island harkens back to a simpler time of imagination and adventure. Its endless trails, dark caverns, and rustic structures offer guests a style of old-fashioned outdoor fun that many fondly remember from their childhoods.

  Tom Sawyer Island has its own backstory. In fact, Tom Sawyer himself purportedly wrote it on a wooden sign and placed it on “his” island:

  WELCUM

  iFN YOU LIKE DARK CAVES

  MYSTERY MINES, BOTTOMLEZZ PITS

  SHAKEY BRIDGES N’ BIG-ROCKS

  YOU HAVE COME TO THE BEST

  PLACE i KNOW iFN YOU DON’T

  LIKE CREEPY OLD SCARY PLACES

  DON’T WURRY…HUCK FINN AN

  MYSELF WUZ PLENTY SCARED

  TOO. HUCK WUZ MORE SCARED

  THAN ME…TOM

  —WUZ NOT HUCK

  (The sign obviously includes many examples of Tom’s rudimentary vocabulary and grammatical skills. However, the actual sign—along with all the other signs on the Island that are autographed by Tom—also includes many letters like “s” and “y” that are written backwards on the sign that, for obviously reasons, are not replicated in the above recitation.)

  The Liberty Square riverboat is closely connected with Tom Sawyer Island, and travels a complete loop around the island on the Rivers of America. The narration aboard the riverboat is provided in large part by the character of Sam Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark Twain.

  As guests travel on the riverboat, Clemens provides humorous commentary on numerous scenes, including Tom Sawyer Island:

  That island over across the way on the starboard side was my stompin’ grounds when I was young. Exceedingly young. Marvelously young. Young by hundreds of years. Younger than I will ever be again. It’s called Tom Sawyer Island and is named for a friend from my boyhood. Even today the only way you can get there is by raft. Old man Harper’s grain mill is there, back in the woods just off Tom’s landing. And that’s Muff Potter’s pond and his windmill. We almost hung Muff once. And there’s Huck’s landing. I always did like Huck, he could swear just wonderfully. He and Tom and I spent most of our wild and reckless youth exploring that island. Lots of caves. Lots of adventure if you know where to look…and we all knew where to look. That’s Superstition Bridge, it connects the big island to the little one. And if you follow the wilderness trail there it‘ll lead you right up to the gates of Fort Langhorn. It’s the last trading outpost before we head into Indian country.

  Farther into the journey, Clemens provided backstory information on Fort Langhorn:

  If you folks on deck look past the trees on the island, that’s Fort Langhorn. Most of these old forts started out as trading posts. Then as settlers started heading west the Army came in and took ’em over. My feeling is, these days there’s a lot less frontier and a lot more civilization than is truly necessary.

  Guests must board rafts that dock on the Frontierland banks of the Rivers of America in order to reach Tom Sawyer Island. Imagineers described the significance of this design choice:

  The fact that this wondrous place resides on an island required yet another vehicle in order for guests to gain access. The rafts puttering across the rivers add kinetics to the landscape of Frontierland and put folks onto a mode of transportation that they don’t typically experience. It’s also an opportunity to deliver story, as the skipper gives you the lay of the land during the river crossing, and serves as another device to build anticipation, much like the park entry process, so that your excitement has plenty of opportunity to build as you approach.

  HARPER’S MILL

  Harper’s Mill is one of the most distinct structures on Tom Sawyer Island, and one that is readily visible from the banks of Frontierland. It features a large working water wheel that is attached to a rustic building composed of weathered wood plank construction. The sign for Harper’s Mill, which was written by Tom Sawyer, includes numerous grammatical issues:

  HARPER’S MILL

  THIS HERE DESERTED

  GRIST MILL WUZ NAMED

  AFTER MY FRIEN JOE

  HARPERS OLD MAN IFN

  YOU CHOOZE TO GO INSIDE

  PEASE DON’T SCARE THE

  BIRDS WHAT YOU WILL FIND

  THERE UNLESS SOME NO

  GOOD DONE SCARED EM

  BEFORE YOU DID

  The sign is autographed by Tom Sawyer, with the “S” of his last name turned backwards.

  Harper’s Mill not only pays tribute to the fictional character Joe Harper, but also Disney Imagineer Harper Goff, who served as art director on the 1954 Disney live-action film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

  Inside Harper’s Mill, you will see a large set of gears and other mechanical equipment. If you look close enough, you will notice that a small bird perched in its nest sits on one of the gears. This is a tribute to The Old Mill, a 1937 Disney short film that featured a scene with a blue bird nesting in a mill’s gears. The film was also notable as being the first to use the multiplane camera, a device invented by Disney animator Ub Iwerks that used a series of different sliding panels to give the illusion of added depth to animated features. The Old Mill won the 1937 Academy Award for Best Short Film. The creaks and moans inside the old mill actually play the song “Down by the Old Mill Stream.”

  Following a refurbishment, Harper’s Mill was rebuilt using modern bearings and spindles. Unfortunately, this new version worked too well, and the Imagineers had to add a damping system to slow down the spin of the water wheel to make sure that the mill still looked as though it were an authentic 1800s structure.

  OLD SCRATCH’S MYSTERY MINE / INJUN JOE’S CAVE

  Old Scratch’s Mystery Mine is another unique area to explore on Tom Sawyer Island. The entrance is marked with large timbers forming an entr
anceway through a wall of rock. A rudimentary sign authored by Tom Sawyer is posted beside the mine entrance:

  OLD SCRATCHS

  MYSTERY MINE

  I HAVE EXPLORED MANY

  OLD MINES, BUT THIS UN IS

  tHE BEST EVER! STRANGE

  tHINGS HAPPEN IN HERE

  SO KEEP A SHARP EYE OUT

  AND DON’T STOP FOR NUTHIN!

  Old Scratch’s Mystery Mine is very low lit. As you travel through, you will hear sound effects of dripping water, loud wind, and bats. These sound effects seem amplified given the low lighting level in the mine. “Old Scratch” is a term that was widely used in the Old South to identify the Devil. If you look closely, you will see glowing minerals and jewels embedded in the mine’s walls.

  Near Old Scratch’s Mine is another dimly lit area for exploration: Injun’s Joe’s Cave. Tom posted another note for guests at the entrance:

  DO NOT WURRY…

  INJUN JOE AINT BEEN

  SEEN IN THESS PARTS

  FOR ALONG TIME. HIS

  CAVE IS DEESERTED!

  P.S. IFN YOU WANT TO

  MAYBE YOU COULD WURRY

  JUST A LITTLE BIT

  As you travel the narrow path through Injun Joe’s Cave, you will see two scary faces in the rock. In reality, you’re seeing lights shine through several holes in the wall, but it is a very fun effect. Injun Joe is the ruthless villain in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer who Tom finds himself trapped in a cave with.

  FORT LANGHORN

  After crossing a suspension bridge known as “Superstition Bridge” that connects one large island to a second smaller one, you can explore a large wooded fort known as Fort Langhorn. This is yet another tribute to Mark Twain, the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. The name of the fort was changed from Fort Sam Clemens (also a tribute to Twain) to Fort Langhorn in 1997 to align it with the name of the fort represented in the 1995 Disney film Tom and Huck starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas.