Walt Disney and Riverfront Square Part 10

Press Conference for the Florida Project - Nov. 15, 1965

Walt Disney and Riverfront Square

Part 10  -  Legacies

By Todd James Pierce

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During Walt’s life, there was a saying around studio hallways: no Disney project truly dies; it simply re-emerges in a new form.  That is to say, though Riverfront Square was never built, design elements later appeared in other Disney projects.

     Over the course of two years, as Riverfront Square was designed, two attractions slowly merged into one: a true-life adventure attraction in which guests journeyed through a Louisiana Bayou to glimpse alligators joined with a pirate grotto attraction in which guests witnessed the adventures of Jean Lafitte and other nineteenth-century pirates.  The end result, Pirates of the Caribbean became one of the most famous attractions ever designed by Disney.  Without Riverfront Square, Pirates of the Caribbean (as we know it at Disneyland) may have never existed as a Louisiana boat excursion.  It may have simply remained a pirate adventure—as originally planned—without the Louisiana swamp to provide the initial atmosphere.  Likewise, New Orleans Square (at Disneyland) most likely shared many design conceits with the New Orleans sections of Riverfront Square. 

     The Audio-Animatronic history of St. Louis would never be built, but elements of that attraction would influence later Disney shows.  The rotating side stages, initially conceived for Riverfront Square, later became a central design component of Country Bear Jamboree.  Likewise the Disney plans to build Audio-Animatronic figures of Mark Twain and Will Rogers to tell the story of American history reemerged fifteen years later as part of the American Adventure, an Audio-Animatronic presentation at EPCOT Center.

     August Busch appeared so impressed with the Disney plans that a few years after seeing them, he opened his own small amusement park in Los Angeles, on brewery land his family had owned for decades.  The park featured a monorail and a boat ride, as well as elaborate gardens and bird aviaries.  Guests were given a tour of the Busch brewery and offered complimentary beer.  Though Busch wasn’t able to hire Disney’s team to design the park, he was at least able to hire Bill Evans to create the gardens, the same man who oversaw much of the landscape design at Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

     On October 25, 1965, St. Louis completed the Gateway Arch, with the final 10-ton segment hoisted into place 630-feet above ground. The following year, less than a mile away, Busch Stadium opened, an enormous structure capable of seating 60,000 fans.  But the city and the CCRC struggled to find a replacement project for the super-block of Riverfront Square.  In retrospect, perhaps the best plan would’ve been for the CCRC to revive their initial designs for an outdoor mall filled with local shops, restaurants, theaters and bars.  But here, too, the influence of Disney must have taken hold.  Instead of creating a sensible community mall, capable of serving the food and shopping needs of tourists and residents alike, the city and the CCRC were now intent on building a spectacle to rival the Disney park once designed for their city.  Disney had once promised to bring their attractions from the New York Fair to St. Louis, so a relatively new Mayor, Alfonso Juan Cervantes looked to the Fair for inspiration.  The plan he developed was truly odd.

     Under Cervantes’ guidance, the city formed a nonprofit foundation to purchase the Spanish Pavilion from the New York World’s Fair once the Fair finished its run.  The foundation also purchased a replica of Christopher Columbus’ flagship, the Santa Maria, from the Fair, with the idea of docking it on the Mississippi, not far from the Spanish Pavilion’s new home.  It took four years to build the structure to house the Pavilion, as well as reassemble the Pavilion in St. Louis.  The city projected the exhibit would receive two million visitors a year—that is, roughly the same number that Disney hoped to find inside its indoor theme park.  Cervantes advertised that the Pavilion would honor the city’s history—specifically, a brief period (32 years) during the late 1700s when the city was under the authority of Spain.  The Pavilion opened with a large parade and initially saw crowds surge through its doors.  One month after opening, during a thunderstorm, the Santa Maria sank (and was later raised from the river floor).  One year later crowds dipped to such low levels that the foundation overseeing the Pavilion was forced to file for bankruptcy.

     After leaving the St. Louis project, Walt Disney quickly focused his attention on Florida.  He wanted to build not only a resort, but also an experimental city he called EPCOT, a project he hoped would become his legacy.  The Disney team had expended thousands of dollars—probably hundreds of thousands—in the design of Riverfront Square, but there was a human cost associated with the project’s closure as well.  Though Walt Disney did not understand that he was sick—cancer was already building in his lungs—eighteen months after he issued his final statement about Riverfront Square, he would pass on.  By the time Walt left Riverfront Square, he had given up on his plan to build a series of Circlevision theaters in key cities across North America and overseas.  More importantly, Riverfront Square represented Walt’s best chance to reconnect with the geography of his boyhood. 

     Over the previous five years, Walt had repeatedly looked for ways to step back into Missouri—with projects in St. Louis, Kansas City, even Marceline, where he spent his young boyhood.  For Florida, Walt and his team would design new riverboats, just like those that once muscled up the Mississippi.  They would even create a muddy stretch of water, just like the river that curved past St. Louis.  But never again would Walt have another opportunity to connect in a significant way to the land that haunted his dreams, that stretch of Midwestern childhood in the center of America.  He would let that dream fall away as he entered the final year of his life, not realizing he was trading away his personal ambitions for Missouri in order to create a new resort that, one day, would be known around the world. 

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With this, I wrap up the series on Riverfront Square, offering (what I believe is) the most complete image so far published of this unusual park that Walt Disney designed yet never built.  I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed pulling it all together.

So now I have one question for you, loyal DHI readers: if the CCRC and St. Louis had found the money to fund construction, do you believe this indoor amusement park would've proved a success?  Three things to consider: (a) The Baby Boomers which supported Disneyland's early financial success would've been teenagers and young adults by the time Riverfront Square opened.  (b) The Disney project in Florida would've likely opened as a resort destination, even if the CCRC funded plans for Riverfront Square, possibly dividing the American audience for a Midwest and/or East Coast Disneyland.  (c) The concept of an indoor amusement park would've been new and therefore risky.  

Post up your comments.  Anyone can post, even without a Google account: just select "name" or "anonymous" from the pull-down list.   See you in a few weeks. -TJP

Walt Disney and Riverfront Square Part 9

Political Comic - Mickey Mouse Eying St. Louis - 1963

Walt Disney and Riverfront Square

Part 9  -  Dollars and Sense

By Todd James Pierce

By spring of 1964, Walt Disney’s team felt that they had worked out a general agreement with the people in St. Louis to build Riverfront Square, with the CCRC and St. Louis making a substantial equity investment in the project.  Generally, Disney would be responsible for all costs pertaining to the show (such as rides, propping, the creation of film, etc.), while parties in St. Louis would provide the massive super-block building, as well as parking garages and other land improvements.  The project was moving so well that summer, the Disney PR team floated a national release to pave the way for future promotions.  The New York Times proclaimed that “the new Disneyland, which is scheduled to be built in St. Louis, will bear little similarity to its predecessor.”  Parade Magazine announced the chances were “excellent that by 1967 a second Disneyland will rise 5 stories, cover about 3½ acres of the St. Louis waterfront.”

     Moreover, the rift between Walt Disney and August Busch, over beer, was settled with handshakes and smiles.  Despite the popular story that disagreements over alcohol ended Disney’s designs on Riverfront Square, General Joe Potter, who worked with Walt on both the World’s Fair and Disney World commented that Walt “had a great relationship with Augie Busch”—so great that Busch wanted to partner with Disney on yet another project.  Impressed with the Disney plans to transform the Riverfront mall, Busch asked Disney to design a regional attraction around the family Brewery in Houston, Texas.  In November, 1964, Busch sent a proposal to Disney’s team—specifically Jack Sayers and Donn Tatum—only to be met with rejection.  Initially Busch hoped to hire the Disney artists and architects as a design team to create a smaller—though equally beautiful—attraction centered around his facility in Texas.  But Walt felt that the design of a brewery tour, coupled with some attractions and an outdoor garden, was something his company should avoid—even when Busch suggested that it would be work-for-hire with the Disney name absent from the project.  The letters Busch received let him down softly, with Donn Tatum complimenting the “beautiful and imaginative” gardens Busch had developed next to his plant in Tampa, then explaining that WED and the Disney team was not a traditional design firm and preferred to have “basic ownership” of their projects to insure their future upkeep and development.

      Though Walt never walked away from St. Louis because of the proposed sale of alcohol, he definitely refused to participate with Busch in the Texas project over the issue.  This might possibly account for the famous statement by Joe Fowler, in which he claimed that Disney left Missouri after quips with August Busch, with Fowler mixing elements of these two closely related stories, then again, this second Busch/Disney proposal might have had no bearing on Fowler’s statement.

      Early in 1965, plans were still on-track to build Riverfront Square, with Walt Disney creating good will in St. Louis by loaning out thirty-three Disneyland costumes (of Mickey, Minnie, the Seven Dwarves, etc.) for a ten-day charity event.  That year, the annual St. Louis Police Department’s circus featured dozens of Disney characters, interspersed between traditional tightrope and trapeze acts, with all money raised going to the Police Officers’ Relief Association.  Likewise, Walt approved plans to feature Disney characters in the annual Veiled Prophet Parade—which was more-or-less the St. Louis version of a Mardi Gras festival.

     By spring, there was at least one clear problem with the St. Louis project: money.  Disney sought to curtail cost by re-using show elements from the World’s Fair.  For example, one idea strongly considered in 1965 was to include the World’s Fair version of the Lincoln Show at Riverfront Square.  At this time, plans were already in motion to deliver a new Lincoln show to Disneyland.  Moreover, the State of Illinois—which initially wished to claim the first Lincoln for itself—could not afford to build a show center to feature the animatronic.  The Fair Lincoln could be relocated to St. Louis simply for the cost of transportation and installation.  Likewise, the WED team considered ways to scale back on more expensive, centerpiece attractions, including the Circarama 200 presentation: once pictured as a lavishly produced film with historical re-enactments, it was now arranged as a far more modest endeavor, likely relying on art and models to create some of the film’s historic depictions. 

     Beyond the basic show costs, there was one fundamental division between the people in St. Louis and Disney.  The Disney people believed that St. Louis should cover the entire cost of the building, delivering the facility ready for the installation of shows and rides.  The St. Louis people believed it was only their responsibility to contribute a basic shell building, with Disney responsible for all interior improvements that would support their shows and rides.  In one memo, circulated among the development teams, Disney estimated that it would cost nearly $9m to create necessary walls, floor alterations, show pits and other facilities for just three attractions on part of one floor (Circlevision, Circarama 200, and Lincoln) while the actual attraction cost for those same three attractions would run just over $4m.  There would be more expensive attractions, such as the Lewis and Clark Adventure, but this memo served to demonstrate the enormous cost to develop the facility that St Louis was unwilling to absorb.

     On July 6, Preston Estep, vice president of the CCRC, met with Walt Disney in Burbank.  The central topic was, of course, money—specifically if the two parties could reach some understanding as to how to pay for the entire project.  Later that day, a reporter from the LA Times asked Estep about the St. Louis project.  Estep dejectedly announced that Riverfront Square was now a “dead deal” but refused to elaborate on the underlying problems.

     On July 8, Estep directed a memo be sent to the CCRC board that members of the Disney team would meet with them on Tuesday, July 13.  Recipients were advised that “this meeting be treated as confidential.”  But news about the failed Disney park was already beginning to leak into the Midwest.

      The following day The Des Moines Register ran a front-page story announcing “Kill Midwest Disneyland.”  When the reporter called Donn Tatum—administrative assistant to Roy Disney—he received no other information than what he’d already learned in the LA Times.  Donn Tatum refused to comment.

     The final Riverfront Square meeting took place at 10am at the Bel-Air East Hotel—the same location that had hosted most previous Disney/CCRC conferences.  The meeting, in all likelihood, was to discuss how to abandon Riverfront Square without damaging the reputation of the Disney Company or the CCRC.  I have never been able to locate notes from this meeting.  Perhaps none were taken.  But later that day Walt Disney issued a personal statement:

We were asked to try to develop a major attraction having the impact on the St. Louis area of a Disneyland.  We suggested at the outset that a project of that scope, in size and cost, might well prove difficult to accomplish, due to a number of imponderable factors.  Such has proved to be the case.

     James Hickok, president of the CCRC, said: “We are in agreement with Mr. Disney’s findings and conclusions on the termination of these plans.  With thanks to Mr. Disney, and sincere regrets that a Disneyland sort of center could not be worked out, we are now exploring other ideas on our own.”

     With these statements, Disney and the CCRC ended its plans to build an indoor theme park.  The Disney Company never publicly discussed its full plans for the park, nor the reasons why they abandoned the project.  The most famous story—Admiral Joe Fowler’s 1989 explanation that the failure of Riverfront Square primarily stemmed from a rift between Disney and Busch over alcohol—is surely not true for all the reasons already discussed.  But in 1973—when Fowler was a much younger man—he offered a different explanation as to why Disney walked away from the project:

We got to the point where we actually laid [Riverfront Square] out with the attractions, by putting a large part in the basement of one of the buildings… All in all, it looked good…It only fell through because in the last analysis we were not going to put our money in it. We'd put our effort in it, but the St. Louis interests would have to come up with the money.  It finally was decided that they couldn't do it.

  

         In addition to money, there may have been one other, unspoken reason as to why Disney walked away from Riverfront Square.  Over the previous two months (in May and June of 1965), Disney had purchased large tracts of land in central Florida, including an 8,500 acre parcel that once belonged to State Senator Irlo Bronson.  By the time Walt held his final meeting with the St. Louis CCRC, the Disney Company had acquired 27,000 acres south of Orlando, more than enough land for a massive resort.  There may have been a sentiment inside the company that a Midwest Disneyland—though small in comparison—would siphon off possible visitors from the park they were now committed to build in Florida. 

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Click HERE for the final chapter...which explores the legacies of this unbuilt St. Louis park.  See you then.  Post up your comments below. -TJP

Walt Disney and Riverfront Square Part 8

Site Plan for Riverfront Square (Detail) - March 1964

Walt Disney and Riverfront Square

Part 8  -  The Presentation

By Todd James Pierce

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On March 16, at the Bel Air East Motel in St. Louis, Walt Disney and his designers held a series of meetings to both present the Disney vision for the St. Louis park and to discuss costs—specifically how costs would be divided up between the city, the CCRC and Disney.  Reporters were allowed to attend the 2pm meeting, which included a large Q&A session.  For the press, Walt explained that the park would be entirely indoors: “We feel we need to contain it within a building so it will be more useful throughout the year…With it contained in a shell, we will have control of light and can put on quite a show.”  He also explained that, “This will not be a little amusement park or kiddieland.”  If his plans moved forward, Walt would likely change the name from Riverfront Square, as this park now encompassed more than riverboat culture.

     When asked if he had considered similar projects in other cities, Walt said, “Yes, but this is the first…It will be the first type of thing developed this way.”

     In broad terms, Walt described the overall concept of Riverfront Square: an indoor park that included a “recreation of old St. Louis and old New Orleans.”  But the full description of this new park Walt only shared with the CCRC and city officials behind closed doors—far from reporters’ curious eyes.

     This private presentation most likely took place on the morning of March 16, a few hours before the press conference.  The presentation began by focusing on Walt’s past accomplishments—specifically, the creation of Disneyland, a park that received over five million guests a year—then transitioned to Walt’s newest project, the four attractions created for the World’s Fair.  The presentation—partially prerecorded—asked the audience to view Walt’s interests in amusements as starting with the California park, advancing with complexity toward New York Fair pavilions, then expanding yet again into St. Louis.  Then the meeting got down to business, with Bob Mathieson’s enthusiastic voice offering a full audio tour of Riverfront Square, a journey that walked the CCRC through this all-weather center, attraction by attraction. 

     The tour, as presented that morning, didn’t begin with the amusement park.  Rather, it began at the top of Riverfront Square, with the Disney solution to the “beer problem.”  An observation floor capped the building, with picture windows overlooking the Arch: the floor was divided into a formal restaurant, banquet space, and a 150-seat cocktail lounge that would sell wine, alcohol and of course beer, such as that brewed by the Busch family.  Guests could enter this floor directly, by using special elevators and bypassing the amusement areas entirely, or, with a hand stamp, guests could pass from the amusement areas into the restaurant and cocktail lounge.   With this, Disney allowed for the sale of alcohol within the structure but created an invisible barrier between the bar and the family-oriented park, though adults could pass freely between the two areas.  Only once this proposal was explained, a working compromise between the original Disney position and that of August Busch, did the presentation move on to the amusement areas of Riverfront Square.

     The presentation, as heard by the CCRC and representatives of the city, went something like this:

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Guests entering Riverfront Square find themselves in a town square promenade, an entrance street leading them to two themed areas.  On the left, Old New Orleans, a picture of Louisiana during the 1850s.  On the right, Old St. Louis, a picture of Missouri in the early 1900s.  Atmospheric lighting effects (first developed for the domed interior of the G.E. Pavilion at the World’s Fair) create the illusion of dusk, clouds unfurling across the fifty-foot-high ceilings, a band of light, fixed on the far horizon, darkening to the colors of juice.  Projected from hidden speakers come sounds of the old cities—such as music, hoof beats, metal wheels passing over stone—to accentuate the illusion that guests are leaving the present world to enter the past.

     At the entrance to Old St. Louis guests move into a recreation of a gaslight plaza, an open area with restaurants and shops.  At the far end, guests find one of the highlights of Riverfront Square, a new theater with revolving stages and multiple Audio-Animatronic figures that depicts regional history—such as the Louisiana Purchase—though the content for this show is still loose, not yet defined. 

     Just down the way guests find the Circarama 200 theater, with a wrap-around (200-degree) screen to partially enclose the audience.  The theater presentation in this venue will focus on the history of St. Louis.

      From the main floor, escalators take guests down into the basement level—past displays of St. Louis History, miniature animated figures and dioramas—until they step off into an even older incarnation of St. Louis, when the city was truly the gateway to the west.  Here guests find the centerpiece attraction, a recreation of the Lewis and Clark adventure.  Though once this attraction was configured with boat vehicles, the current version incorporates a guest conveyance that Bob Mathieson describes as “a new type of traveling chair-car” that carry guest through the Plains, over the Rockies and finally to the Pacific, with animated scenes depicting historic moments in Lewis and Clark’s journey west.

     Also on this lower level is an Audio-Animatronic show featuring American river pirates of the 1800s, such as Samuel Mason, as well as a series of dark rides focused on some yet-to-be-determined aspect of lore or history concerning the Mississippi River.  The final St. Louis attraction on the lower level is the Circlevision film, a panoramic experience now called “St. Louis Today.”  As what was likely intended as a good will gesture toward August Busch, the presentation indicates that the film will not only include the Jefferson Arch and the outdoor festivals, but also Busch Gardens.

     From the basement, guests travel on an escalator up to a mezzanine floor, which largely caters to the interest of children, an area that still needs development and definition.  Guests might explore Mississippi river caves.  Other rides—perhaps clones of Peter Pan Flight and Snow White’s Adventures—could carry guests into the world of animation.

     A tour of the New Orleans section begins on the main floor, with the traditional Creole streets of the French Quarter, but guests quickly find the first marquee attraction, The Blue Bayou Adventure.  On this ride guests float on flat-bottom swamp boats through the wetlands of Louisiana, encountering cougars and alligators, as well as water snakes.  But unlike previous versions of this ride, once guests surge down a waterfall, they now find themselves accosted by the Pirates of the Caribbean, with the fiery action framed around the sacking of a city.

     The Golden Horseshoe Revue, popular at Disneyland, will be adapted to a New Orleans Theme, complete with new songs and a line of French can-can girls.

     The third and final attraction for the New Orleans area is an old Haunted Mansion, filled with ghosts of bygone years and troubles that reside in the past, with specific attention paid to the regional flavor of legendary ghost tales.  The Disneyland version, completed five years later, will be an entertaining excursion with fun-loving specters, mostly divorced from their historic context, but here at Riverfront Square, where the figures of local history are resurrected through the wonders of audio-animatronics, the Haunted Mansion stands as an attraction where the lore of the past rises from the grave as well.

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     In this presentation, there are at least two significant attractions—once central to the project—that have fallen away.  Most notably missing, the Audubon Room, which would’ve featured local wildlife and commemorated the life of John James Audubon.  Also missing: the PeopleMover-like transportation system between Riverfront Square, the Arch, and Downtown.  Aspects of other attractions were also changed in interesting ways.  For example, the ride system for The Lewis and Clark Adventure—described as “a new type of traveling chair-car”—might possibly be a distant forerunner for the Omnimover system, yet when I asked Bob Gurr (who later developed the Omnimover) about any such connection, he mostly dismissed the notion.  “The Riverfront Square transportation went no further than the publicity words used,” he said.  “No design effort by WED that I ever saw.”

      I have never come across any artwork created for this presentation, though clearly some was made.  The CCRC and city executives were likely shown some conceptual art to help sell the proposal.  In addition, they were shown detailed plot plans for each floor as well as design work for comparable Disney attractions.  For example, during the presentation on the Audio-Animatronic theater, the CCRC and city were shown photos of the Carousel of Progress and offered an explanation that the technology used to create the Carousel for the World’s Fair would be adapted and improved for Riverfront Square, with the St. Louis show having one center rotating stage and two side rotating stages.  Likewise to illustrate the effectiveness of the Circarama 200 presentation, the Disney designers showed attendees sketch drawings for a Circarama 200 program already in development for Disneyland, “One Nation Under God,” to demonstrate the dramatic effect of the expanding motion picture screen.

      Yet the March 1964 proposal represents the fullest picture of Walt Disney’s Riverfront Square ever offered to the CCRC and the city managers of St. Louis.  In later plot layouts, the placement of certain attractions would shift inside the building.  For example, in one version, the Circarama 200 theater would be slotted into the basement, but at this point, the conceptual vision for Riverfront Square was mostly complete, with Walt articulating his desire to build a new type of indoor park, one that would draw upon and challenge the technologies used to create Disneyland and the Disney attractions at the World’s Fair.

      The mood at the presentation was upbeat and optimistic, with Walt himself claiming that this new park would provide a tourist icon for the region much as Disneyland had done for Los Angeles.  Preston Estep, vice president of the CCRC was “very hopeful” that the Disney project would be built and believed that the financial obstacles were “not insurmountable” and would be worked out in future meetings. Generally the CCRC members felt the presentation “tremendous” and local financial backers—such as the Equitable Life Assurance Society, who had put up $31m to build the new stadium—expressed enthusiasm over the Disney plan.  More pointedly, James P. Hickok, president of the CCRC, believed the presentation was “one of the most exciting developments that has ever challenged the imagination of the community.

     With good feelings moving through the room, the CCRC set a meeting in early April to discuss their equity investment in the project.  To most present, the Disney proposal seemed to engender the necessary interest to bolster a large financial commitment.  August Busch appeared satisfied with the addition of a skybox cocktail lounge.  The park itself—though entertaining—appeared to treat concerns of local history with respect and reverence.  At one point, Walt even said, “We hope to gain the respect of the community,” suggesting, perhaps, that he had taken these concerns seriously. As the afternoon session adjourned for drinks and dinner, most people present were fairly convinced that a large Disney project was coming to St. Louis.  So this leaves only one major question left to answer: what went wrong?

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Click HERE for Part 9...which answers the question: so what went wrong?  Post up your comments below. -TJP

Walt Disney and Riverfront Square Part 7

Lincoln at New York World's Fair - 1964

Walt Disney and Riverfront Square

Part 7  -  Countdown to Riverfront Square

By Todd James Pierce

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At the start of 1964, Walt lavished the lion’s share of his attention on the World’s Fair, which was set to open in April.  Yet, during these same weeks, he carved out time to develop ride concepts for Riverfront Square—attractions so impressive they would insure a large investment from the City of St. Louis and the CCRC.  Beyond this, he searched for a solution that would solve the “beer” problem that now plagued his proposed park.

      In January, Walt asked his design team to develop additional concepts for Riverfront Square.  They submitted loose ideas, each tied to either a St. Louis or a New Orleans theme.  One idea: a Matterhorn-style thrill ride through a network of Mississippi river caves.  Another idea: a Native American canoe ride down an indoor river, the canoes passing depictions of the Mississippi headwaters on their way to St. Louis.  Walt liked both ideas.  A larger question, however, concerned the dark rides.  On a plot plan, designers had penciled in attractions similar to Peter Pan Flight and Snow White’s Adventures.  Walt wanted to tie these dark rides to the history of St. Louis and the river, but as of January, none of these rides yet had a new theme.  The design team proposed a dark ride based on the great fire of 1849 when fifteen blocks of St. Louis blazed into the night.  Walt didn’t think this ride appropriate for Riverfront Square.  Likewise, he didn’t think a ride based on Frank and Jesse James—famous for their bank robberies in Missouri—right for the Square either. 

      Walt’s team looked into the St. Louis pageant of the Veiled Prophet—a 100-year-old annual celebration, similar to Mardi Gras, with a parade, a fair and a contest among debutantes to become queen.  But this, too, failed to produce a workable theme for a dark ride.

     Elsewhere in the Square, Walt’s interest was largely drawn to a new history-inspired stage show.  Even though the studio had yet to create a single working version of Lincoln for the upcoming World’s Fair, Walt was already imagining ways to expand this new technology: he now wanted to create an attraction that featured multiple realistic audio-animatronic figures to recreate important moments in the history of St. Louis.  For this, Walt’s team researched regional history and eventually developed a list of possible people and events to include in the show: Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon discussing the Louisiana Purchase; Will Rogers (who rode and roped in St. Louis); John Phillips Sousa (who opened the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 with the downbeat of his baton); Charles Lindbergh and his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis; President Teddy Roosevelt (the first president to fly in an airplane, an event that took place in St. Louis); and local sports heroes from the early part of the century—though in the planning notes the designers did not (or perhaps could not) list a single sports figure by name.  The animatronic figures would be arranged in a theater with a subfloor and at least one—if not multiple—revolving stages, so as to rotate figures and sets toward the audience, just like the revolving stage Walt had observed in St. Louis the previous spring.

      These ideas were loose, fluid, changing from week to week, but by this point, the Disney team had arrived at a stable structure for the Riverfront project, even if individual attraction ideas were not yet pinned down with specifics.  Walt also had arrived at an underlying design philosophy: the St. Louis park would adapt some ride technology currently used at Disneyland, but more importantly, the park would serve as an opportunity for Walt and his team to develop new animatronic technology toward levels far outside their current abilities.  It was a high goal, this animatronic theater—a centerpiece attraction with multiple human animatronics, synchronized together, arranged onto rotating stages, each propped with multiple backgrounds.  For years now, with Disneyland, such creative determination had defined Walt’s management style: he expressed engaging and technologically complicated goals and blindly trusted his hand-selected team of artists and engineers to somehow, with his guidance and collaboration, see deeply into the project and make it a reality.

     With design concepts moving toward a full park, Walt now looked to another looming concern: cost.  On January 8, Walt asked Joe Fowler, who managed construction at Disneyland, to estimate the cost of these new attractions.  Fowler promised to sketch out some rough figures in a couple of days, but the cost, Walt already knew, would be significant.

      On Feb 17, Walt called up his friend, Jacob “J.S.” Hamel—one of the three principals who had not only engineered Disneyland in 1955 but also worked as a lead engineer for the 1939 World’s Fair.  Walt asked Hamel about a system that would heat and cool a building as large as the one proposed for Riverfront Square.  Hamel provided the Disney people with information on the central air plant his firm had designed for a 1958 expansion at the Los Angeles airport.

      By February, 1964, Walt looked at Riverfront Square as a new type of Disney venture, a sophisticated provincial park that—like other parks built in the late 1950s and early 1960s (most notably Pleasure Island in Boston and Six Flags in Arlington)—drew inspiration from local culture and regional history.  Even here—before a full proposal was finished—Walt was tentatively considering other cities where he might produce small and unique Disney parks or exhibits.  One possible location was Kansas City, where Joyce Hall, a longtime friend of Walt and president of the Hallmark Company, was planning to build an elaborate park, mall, and zoo.  Another possible location was Central Illinois, where the state government wished to build a permanent theater for the Lincoln animatronic, once the World’s Fair finished its run, not far from the president’s house in Springfield.  But these other parks and projects, Walt knew, were in an undefined future, something that existed only as an idea, without funding or a defined plan, like the chain of Circlevision theaters he someday wanted to build.

      At the start of March, with two weeks until the formal presentation in St. Louis, Walt and his team were still muscling through design concepts, picking up new ideas and setting old ones aside, and sifting through financial data to reasonably estimate the cost to turn two riverside blocks into a world-class amusement park.  From a contemporary standpoint, it seems inconceivable that some of these attraction concepts, even at this point, would be swapped out with new ones before the Disney team committed their drawings to presentation slides, recorded a pitch tape and took a flight to deliver their proposal to the CCRC and the Mayor in St. Louis.  In sharp contrast to top-heavy amusement companies today, Walt and his team worked in quick collaboration as a large unified group.  Bob Gurr once described Walt’s core design team as “a very small gang all moving really, really fast,” meaning that you had to pay attention to keep up with Walt.  I can think of no other place where this aspect of Walt’s design strategy is more clearly demonstrated than in the weeks leading up to the final presentation for Riverfront Square.  As Walt was struggling to complete complex animatronics for the World’s Fair, he was also synthesizing concepts from Disneyland into a whole new type of amusement venture, a themed, multi-level indoor center, a park that fused popular history with dimensional entertainment.

      By the second week of March, the plans for Riverfront Square were neither finished nor had they been approved by the people in St. Louis.  But there was one bright spot: Walt had settled on a compromise that, in theory, should bridge the division between the brewery culture of St. Louis and the family atmosphere of this new “Midwestern Disneyland.”  This compromise would be one of the key features of the big Disney presentation in St. Louis on Monday, March 16.  

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Click HERE for Part 8, which includes...a detailed description of the private presentation in which Walt and his team explained what they planned to build in St. Louis.  This will be a floor-by-floor tour of this unbuilt park.  See you then.  Post up your comments below. -TJP

Walt Disney Takes You On A Nostalgic Stroll Down 1950s Disneyland Main Street, U.S.A.

WALT DISNEY'S VISION OF DISNEYLAND'S

MAIN STREET USA

"A NOSTALGIC STROLL" 

Very happy to let you know that for this short documentary the Disney History Institute has teamed up with the inspirational leader and founder of Mouse Scrappers (www.mousescrappers.com). She is a big supporter of the Institute (and a fan of our mission to celebrate Walt Disney's creative legacy through media) and so she came to me with the idea of putting together a vintage-style slide show featuring Walt's original 1955 Main Street U.S.A. To us, this just sounded like a fantastic idea, so Todd and I set out to help with the historical aspect and we went searching through the hallowed halls of the Institute and came up with approximately 35 vintage slides of 1950s Main Street. Almost all of the slides are from the opening year (1955/56), with just a few coming as late as 1959 (but all are from the fifties). We turned these over to Carol, and she went in search of some Walt Disney audio, and found a a perfect match to the slides, Walt talking about Main Street. We were excited and pleased with the outcome, and I am sure the Institute readers will feel the same way! For Todd and I, it truly satisfied our wish to educate about Walt and his vision, but in a manner that Walt would have liked, by entertaining. This concept is now commonly known as "edutainment," which was a word (and concept) coined by Disney as early as 1948 to describe the True-Life Adventures.

So sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy this nostalgic stroll down Disneyland's Main Street, U.S.A., as Walt explains his dream. A perfect way to spend a Friday night ... at least that is how those of us at the Institute feel.

Offer your comments here on our site, or on our YouTube channel. What, you didn't know we have a Disney History Institute YouTube channel? Yes, after the newsreel is over, you can also watch a double bill of one horror film (The Haunted Mansion Hatbox Ghost Mystery) and one Sci-Fi film (Adventure Thru Inner Space). Not your cup of tea? Then check out our blockbuster film (400,000 views!) Disneyland Canon: 1957 or the classic western Zorro at Disneyland: 1958. You can visit our YouTube Channel at: Disney History.

Or engage in the discussion on this short piece on our Disney History Institute Facebook page, where this is always something new about Walt's legacy being shared. Check it out at: DHI Facebook Group.

Enjoy!

Walt Disney and Riverfront Square Part 6

August "Gussie" Busch - mid-1960s

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Walt Disney and Riverfront Square

Part 6  -  Booze, Money and Respect

By Todd James Pierce

 

One of the best-known stories about Riverfront Square is that it was stopped by booze—a rivalry between August Busch (whose family owned the famous St. Louis brewery) and Walt Disney, but this story in its popular form, if not entirely wrong, is greatly misrepresented.

      The popular version of this story can be traced back to Admiral Joe Fowler, a retired Navy man who oversaw construction at Disneyland and also participated in meetings for Riverfront Square.  In the 1960s, Fowler was one of the most important individuals in the Disney Company, a man Walt trusted without reservation.  Late in his life, when he was in his eighties, Fowler tied the failure of Riverfront Square to the brewery culture in St. Louis.  In 1989, in Florida, he offered this story—a version that would become famous: “[Riverfront Square] was only two blocks from Anheuser Busch Stadium.  And of course [August Busch] was a great man in St. Louis….We had a big banquet the night before the final papers were to be signed.  Walt was there.  The Mayor of St. Louis was sitting beside me.  When Mr. Busch got up and he said, ‘Any man that thinks he can open and make a success of any amusement park and not sell beer or hard liquor ought to have his head examined,’  Walt was sitting beside me, and I saw that eyebrow go up…Sure enough we embarked the next morning.  We had our own plane to go back to California.  Walt said, ‘All right, fellas.  No St. Louis.’ And that was it.”

      This popular version—at least in a literal sense—cannot be entirely true.

      There are two strong possibilities for Fowler offering this story: (1) The culture around the Disney studios is such that single stories, at times, are used to illustrate a general truth about a complex situation.  The sale of alcohol was certainly an issue—a divisive one—in terms of Walt’s participation in Riverfront Square, but it was not the issue that prevented the park from being built.  Or, (2) Fowler was confusing two stories, mixing them together.  August Busch participated in the St. Louis Redevelopment Committee.  Also, he oversaw the construction of his namesake stadium, a couple blocks from Riverfront Square.  But during these same years (1963-1964) August Busch also wanted to partner with Walt on the development of a second park—this one to be located in Houston, TX.  Disney’s participation in the Houston project was definitely stopped by issues pertaining to the sale of alcohol.  (More on that later.)  But alcohol in St. Louis was something else entirely.

     Unlike easy-going, health-conscious California, St. Louis was a blue-collar, drinking town, with Anheuser-Busch one of the largest companies in the region.  The two focal points for the new Riverfront District would be the Gateway Arch and the massive Busch Stadium.  August Busch was particularly proud of his contributions to the redevelopment efforts and believed that he was now formally tying his family business to St. Louis with the stadium.  He was happy with the original plans for Riverfront Square—plans that included locally-owned restaurants, a saloon, and a dance club, all of which would sell Busch beer.  He admired the way Disney designers could transform physical space to create atmosphere.  The problems started when the Disney contracts arrived for Riverfront Square—a project that was now officially called “Walt Disney’s Riverfront Square.”   

     In 1963, Walt Disney felt his name held “considerable economic value” in “the entertainment and amusement field.”  Disney’s lawyers believed that any project that used the name Walt Disney would receive “greater attendance” and produce higher financial returns.  In order to protect the value and brand of “Walt Disney,” the contract also stated that the Disney project and name could not be used to sell liquor and could not be used for any adult venture, such as a “playboy club.”

     Walt and August “Gussie” Busch were social friends.  General Joe Potter, who engineered Walt Disney World into existence, claimed they “had a great relationship.”  But an alcohol-free amusement park was an issue for Busch.  In addition to the obvious problem—that the revamped plans for Riverfront Square snubbed his family’s product—Busch wanted to build his own attraction in the Riverfront District—one right next door to the Disney park.  Specifically, “Gussie” Bush wanted to build an Anheuser-Busch museum, one dedicated to the history of the Anheuser Company, with daily exhibitions of the Clydesdale horses, demonstrations of the brewing process, and the sale of beer.  Busch felt that a beer-free amusement park right next door to his proposed museum was a rejection of his family’s culture and the culture of St. Louis.  Moreover, it suggested that Walt believed the entire United States was filled with health nuts like one finds in California.

      From there, the issue escalated.

     Generally the CCRC felt that “no project developed by Disney or anyone else would be approved if they did not have provisions for the sale of beer, wine or liquor.”  Preston Estep, a prominent St. Louis banker and a Redevelopment officer, added, the sale of beer at amusement events “is in the best St. Louis tradition.”  Generally local residents—eager to see a Disney project revitalize their city—believed that Disney was trying to impose the social culture of California on Missouri.  In terms of public relations, the problem became so serious that on Nov. 16, Walt appeared in an open forum and on TV to explain the uniqueness of the Disney project.

     Dressed in his usual dark suit and tie—the same clothes he wore when hosting The Wonderful World of Color—Walt explained that this new park would be “something for the whole family,” with no beer or liquor and food at prices the average family could afford.  “I’m not interested in a tourist-trap attraction,” he continued.  “I want something we can be proud of and St. Louis can be proud of.”

     One reporter asked, “Then it’s your idea, Mr. Disney, that none of these places in this development will serve liquor?”

     “Not within this complex, no,” Walt replied.  “There can be things outside if they want to go there.”

     The reporter, following up, asked if Walt had personal beliefs against alcohol. 

     “Ah no, I’ll have a drink with anybody,” Walt laughed.  “A lot of people don’t believe in drinking, and I respect their wishes.”  But he intended to create “an area that will appeal to the whole family.”

     Though Walt appeared cheerful and well-meaning on TV, his message was poorly received—so poorly that Walt and his designers soon understood that they would need to somehow compromise on this issue.  Without a compromise, the St. Louis project would simply not move forward.

      A few days later more bad news arrived: Buzz Price completed the second ERA report, the one that examined the financial feasibility of a Disney-produced indoor amusement park at Riverfront Square.  The report suggested that there would be an adequate tourist-base to support a Disney park in St. Louis, especially with the Gateway Arch and the new Stadium further establishing St. Louis as a tourist destination.  The report placed yearly attendance at the indoor park between two and two-and-a-half million, with the average person staying four hours.  Price estimated the overall cost for the two-acre park at $20 million—that is, $3 million more than the initial cost to build Disneyland.  The indoor park, Price believed, could prove profitable, though his figures showed, at best, a meager “5 percent return on investment.”  In conclusion, Price termed the project a “yes, if” proposal; that is, he would support the Disney park at Riverfront Square if Walt’s team overcame specific difficulties.  These difficulties involved cost.  Riverfront Square, Price believed, would prove a reasonable investment for the company if the city of St. Louis or the CCRC paid for a large portion of the shell building and offered the land at subsidized rates.

      By the start of December, Walt understood that the Riverfront Square project faced at least two significant problems—the enormous cost to build an indoor park and the sale of alcohol.  Then Walt was met with a third challenge: a small, yet vocal group of St. Louis citizens charged that Walt Disney was cheapening local history, turning heritage in to commerce, even though the St. Louis theming of Riverfront Square had actually started with the CCRC plans.  One reporter would later lay it out bluntly: [Riverfront Square] “will recreate in full, phony audio-animatronic riverboat glory just those local features that the city has destroyed.”

      As the year came to an end, Walt knew that his full proposal would need to overcome or accommodate each of these concerns: (1) the plans for Walt Disney’s Riverfront Square would need to so impress the CCRC—and also show that its presence would prove a financial boon to the region through increased tourism and hotel revenue—that the city or the CCRC would pay for the massive shell building, (2) the plans would need to somehow account for the sale of alcohol and support local brewery culture without damaging the family image of the indoor Disney park, and (3)  the specific films, rides, and attractions developed for the Square would need to demonstrate a respectful use and appropriation of local history.  

      In less than three months, Walt would give his full proposal to the city.

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Click here for the seventh part in the Riverfront Series, which includes...an indoor roller coaster through river caves, like the Matterhorn, that was briefly considered for this indoor park.  Post up your comments below. -TJP

Walt Disney and Riverfront Square - Part 5

WED Design of an Early Human Animatronic - mid-1960s

Walt Disney and Riverfront Square

Part 5  -  Slow Progress

By Todd James Pierce

For much of 1963, Walt’s designers focused their attention on the New York World’s Fair, where they would create attractions and displays to fill four massive pavilions.  As the construction manager of Disneyland recalls: Walt “had never built great rides like those he put in the World's Fair.”  These rides were all indoor attractions—most larger than any Walt had previously constructed for Disneyland.  Moreover, these attractions relied heavily on new technology Walt was developing to synchronize movement with sound, mechanical figures he called “Audio-Animatronics.”  The first major presentation of Audio-Animatronics opened that same summer at Disneyland, a relatively simple application of the technology, with birds performing songs.  But Walt believed that this same technology, once enhanced and refined, could produce wondrous shows for the Fair, including an “almost-human mechanized Abraham Lincoln.”  He hoped that, by 1964, the mechanized Lincoln would appear so lifelike that an audience would feel as though they had seen the President in person.

      Though the CCRC had established the historic St. Louis theme for Riverfront Square, the Fair demonstrated new ways to recreate this historic setting.  For Disneyland, Walt had relied heavily on the influence of film and TV to create the visual landscape for his park.  Frontierland wasn’t so much a recreation of the Wild West as it was a recreation of the Wild West as presented in popular film.  Adventureland was modeled on exotic films set in remote locations—African Queen, in particular.  But while working with the Fair, Walt saw how countries, states and cities were using these same cinematic techniques of set design and propping to recreate regional locales.  During the summer of 1963, the State of Hawaii finalized plans to create a beach luau.  Florida, the kitsch and art deco of Miami.  Most notably, New Orleans, its famous French Quarter.  Through an outdoor walk-through pavilion named “Bourbon Street,” the city of New Orleans would present ten restaurants, a can-can theater, a voodoo shop, and a jazz club.

     Walt brought some of these concepts back to Riverfront Square.

     During the fall of 1963, many of the early Riverfront ideas fell away.  Gone was the Art of Animation exhibit.  Gone, too, an actual, working steamboat on the Mississippi.  In their place, Walt created a historic indoor space themed much in the style of World’s Fair pavilions.  But the indoor space of Riverfront Square didn’t just hold one historic setting: it now held two.

      Half of the six-hundred-foot Riverfront building would be staged and dressed to represent old St. Louis (specifically St. Louis at the turn of the century) and the other half, old New Orleans (specifically New Orleans before the Civil War).  The New Orleans section would incorporate a French Quarter street—similar to the one presently being designed for the World’s Fair—and would feature restaurants, shops and even a can-can show.  The backdrop for the New Orleans area would incorporate a miniature diorama of the city’s port with the Mississippi River extending into the horizon line of the painted background. 

     As for rides and attractions Walt and his team imagined for the New Orleans section, only a few existed—but these were substantial.

     A Bayou Boat Ride would take guests out into the swamp, through a maze of artificial cypress trees, and then down a waterfall, into the lower basement.  Already Disney engineers understood that they could create a massive show floor (with sixty-foot ceilings) in a second basement, as they could dig down 112-feet before hitting bedrock.  Down in the basement, guests would travel through the cavernous world of the bayou before rising once again to an upper floor to disembark.  This idea, later, would form a portion of the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, but in 1963, this ride held no pirates, only the natural scenery and wildlife of Louisiana. 

     The pirates, however, were in a separate attraction: a walk-through ship that would feature Jean Lafitte and other scallywags. 

     The actual steamboat, once slotted for the river, was replaced with an indoor, simulated steamboat, designed as a restaurant and situated in an indoor pond—a concept strikingly similar to the CCRC’s Gilded Cage cinema.

     The final proposed attraction for this section of Riverfront Square was a Haunted House.  For nearly 10 years, Walt had developed a Haunted House for Disneyland—an attraction originally arranged as a walk-through exhibit.  By 1963 Walt had already built the exterior of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland (though the ride wouldn’t open until 1969), so the St. Louis Haunted House appears to be patterned after the then-current plans for the California walk-through attraction, complete with the “stretching rooms.”

      The St. Louis portions of Riverfront Square, however, were far less developed.

      The area itself would feature the architecture of the turn-of-the-century city, including a diorama of a St. Louis street leading down to the Mississippi River, with the suggestion that this river eventually connected to the one presented in the New Orleans section of the park.  But in terms of rides and attractions there was only one developed concept—the Circlevision theater.

      The Circlevision theater would present a wrap-around, 360-degree film of St. Louis culture, as well as a cinematic trip down river.  Helicopter shots would give a bird’s eye view of the city—with perhaps even a shot taken as a chopper cut a path through the finished Arch.  Similar to the Disneyland venue, guests would stand—or lean against handrails—as they viewed the 15-minute presentation.  The film itself would tell “the story of St. Louis” and showcase the cultural beauty of the city. 

     But that wasn’t the only film project Walt was considering for the St. Louis park.  In a separate theater, Walt was contemplating an attraction loosely based on one that he had wanted to build at Disneyland.  For years, Walt had explored a show that would have depicted the early history of America through the perspective and voices of American presidents.  In 1963, this attraction was called One Nation Under God, which would use—among other elements—a new film format he called Circarama 200.  Unlike Circlevision, Circarama 200 would only present a 200-degree screen that partially enclosed a seated audience—five screens instead of the nine necessary to create a full circle.   The width of the film would narrow and expand during the presentation—at times using all five screens, at times three, and occasionally just one for intimate, dramatic effect. 

     In the 1963 version of this unbuilt Disneyland attraction, One Nation Under God would present the history of American freedom, from the Declaration of Independence to the Civil War, with key moments re-enacted on the screen.  The wrap-around presentation would allow the army of the North, situated on one side of the screen to launch a cannonball directly at the Southern Army opposite them.  “After the Circarama showing,” Disney-designer Wathel Rogers once explained, “a curtain will close, then open again to reveal the Hall of Presidents.”

     The Circarama 200 show at Riverfront Square, however, wouldn’t focus on early American history.  Instead it would focus on the history of St. Louis—though what historic events the film should depict was open for discussion.  Perhaps the film would recreate famous moments in the city’s history: the 1904 St. Louis Fair, the flight of Charles Lindberg, the journey of Lewis and Clark.  Or perhaps the film would use the stories and characters of Mark Twain to illustrate nineteenth-century life along the Mississippi.

      The Audubon Room—with its presentation of North American birds—remained a possibility, as did The Lewis and Clark Adventure, though now Walt no longer thought of it as a water attraction.

        Park planners recall Walt’s enthusiasm to somehow incorporate Audio-Animatronic figures into Riverfront Square, but how those figures would be used had not yet been decided.  Already, Walt was interested in creating more complex human figures—like Lincoln—capable of realistic movements and speech.

     Likewise Walt wanted to adapt the dark rides of Fantasyland (such as Peter Pan Flight) to a St. Louis theme, but this, too, was something his team had not yet explored.  At this time, there was no plan to use the animated Disney characters anywhere in Riverfront Square.  This, most likely, was an artistic decision to heighten the illusion that guests were strolling through old St. Louis and old New Orleans.  The only exception was the possible use of Davy Crockett—who was a historic figure and not a Disney-creation.  Specifically Walt was considering a play area—like Tom Sawyer Island—where children could wander through Davy Crockett’s caves.

      But as plans for Riverfront Square increased—especially with the use of Audio-Animatronic technology—so did costs. 

      In the initial ERA study, Bill Stevenson assumed that the city and the CCRC would build a series of freestanding buildings, all of which would be leased out to individual businesses.  For the second ERA study, Buzz Price assumed that the city and the CCRC would build the shell building and offer the facility to Disney at a friendly rate.  The question now—with the show costs increasing—how large an investment would the city and the CCRC need to make in Riverfront Square to create a technologically-sophisticated theme park in St. Louis?

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Click HERE for the sixth part in the Riverfront Series, which includes...information that suggests the most famous Riverfront Square story—that planning was halted over booze—is wrong.  Post up your comments below. -TJP