Biography | Walt Disney — The Castle Drawbridge He Opened on Dedication Day

People remember Disneyland's first day as a smooth unveiling. 17 July 1955 was a press and television day, run hot and overcrowded, with a live ABC broadcast titled Dateline Disneyland. Walt Disney read a dedication that afternoon. The text is on a plaque at the park: Disneyland is your land, dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America, dated 17 July 1955. Estimates put the television audience near ninety million. The park had been built in a year and a day on former orange groves in Anaheim. Counterfeit invitations pushed attendance well past the planned twenty thousand. Asphalt was still soft in the heat. Drinking fountains were scarce because of a plumbers' strike. The image that locked the day for the cameras was this castle. Sleeping Beauty Castle sits on the hub, the sight line Walt wanted tall enough to keep people oriented. During the broadcast, children were sent across the drawbridge into Fantasyland after a short dedication of the happiest kingdom of them all. The public opening followed on 18 July. The industry nickname for the seventeenth became Black Sunday. None of that undid the pin. From this courtyard the park still reads as a circle with a castle at the center, the plan he had argued for when bankers wanted a roadside attraction. The drawbridge has been raised and lowered for later ceremonies. The first drop was this date, for a live camera and a crowd that had not yet learned the routes. Photo: Tuxyso, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons