TP Parks

  In my extreme makeover of the Magic Kingdom, much of my work to date has focused on the part of the parks known as "Frontierland."  Frontierland is one of the themed lands at the original Magic Kingdom at the Disneyland resort in Anaheim and at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida.  Tokyo's equivalent is "Westernland" and Hong Kong's is "Grizzly Gulch."  The Paris park has a Frontierland, but it is located where Adventureland is traditionally.  The Shanghai Disney resort does not yet have a land or attraction associated with the Frontierland tradition.   In my Disney park, Frontierland becomes "Fokeloreland."  Walt Disney put many characters from American fokelore into animated and live action films.  This land celebrates the tall tales and heroes from the earlier times of the United States.  Future entries will "zoom in" on each section of the fun map.   After I completed this section of the map, I learned that ...

  The Theme Park Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana, claims to be the nation's first theme park.  According to the park website, "Evansville, Ind., industrialist Louis J. Koch created the world’s first theme park as a retirement project. He was troubled that the tiny hamlet of Santa Claus, Ind., was visited by children who were disappointed when they discovered Santa was not there. With nine children of his own, Koch loved children, holidays and celebrations.  Santa Claus Land opened August 3, 1946; the theme park included a toy shop, toy displays, a restaurant, themed children’s rides, and, of course, Santa."  In time, the name of the park was changed to Holiday World and additional themed lands were introduced, including Fourth of July, Halloween, and Thanksgiving.  Visits to Holiday World (when I lived a bit closer to Santa Claus) are part of what inspired this blog and The Florida Project.   

The Fun Map After each trip to Walt Disney World, a paper park map was saved in the Pairan Family Archives.  Sometimes attractions visited were marked or amounts spent on meals were jotted down, making a record of the specifics of the trip.  These marks provided a lot of information for my Florida Project. There is another type of map, however, that is more decorative than functional and typically larger than the informational maps.  It is known by some as the "Fun Map."  The first fun maps, represented above, have 1958 dates on them.  Other years can be viewed by searching for "Mouse Maps." I was able to purchase a fun map during my first visit to the Disneyland Park.  Though I have tried to care for it, it is getting worn from use.   So the heart of The Florida Project is a very large fun map.  In future blogs, I will show pieces of the map as they get completed.    

Welcome to The Florida Project! My dad's sister lives in Florida, so we made regular visits to the Sunshine State when I was growing up.  My first trip to Walt Disney World was when I was just two years old.  My parents took me to visit the Magic Kingdom during the Bicentennial celebration in 1976.  We returned in 1978 after my brother Scott was born (Mickey's 50th birthday bash) and in 1981 for the WDW Tencennial.  After EPCOT Center opened, we visited in 1984 (Donald's 50th) and 1987 (WDW 15th Anniversary).   My senior class trip was to Walt Disney World in 1992, and by that time the "third gate" had opened--Disney-MGM Studios.  We had another family trip in 1997 (WDW 25th and the cake-stle fiasco).  Scott and I took trips to Orlando in 2003 and Anaheim (Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure) in 2005.  My bride and I spent our honeymoon in the parks and on a Disney cruise in 2007 and returned to the parks for our 10th anniversary in ...