Thinking of walking from Magic Kingdom to Epcot? Think again!
People, especially those who haven’t been to Walt Disney World in many years, always tell me how big WDW really is. In reality, most people don’t realize how much land WDW actually covers. In fact, it is roughly 80 times the size of the entire nation of Monaco, twice the size of Manhattan, and the same size as San Francisco, California. So when you say that WDW is huge, you are not kidding!
The Walt Disney World Resort is made up of 47 square miles of land … or about 30,000 acres. Only about 1100 acres of that land is dedicated to the 4 theme parks. In fact, with only 7,100 acres developed, there is plenty of room for expansion!
But how (and why) did Disney buy all that land?
In the early 1950s, Anaheim, the home of Disneyland, was a quiet little town, surrounded by nothing but acres and acres of orange groves. Originally, Walt Disney wanted his new 8-acre theme park to be built near his Burbank studios, but he soon realized that so little space would not be enough. So, he bought more than 160 acres of orange and walnut trees in Anaheim near the junction of the Santa Ana Freeway and Harbor Boulevard, and built his “Magic Kingdom” within its borders (while moving 15 existing houses in the process). Today, Disneyland spans less than 300 acres, including Disney’s California Adventure and additional hotel properties. Relatively speaking, the entire Disneyland could fit within Epcot.
Sadly, Walt Disney didn’t buy enough land around Disneyland, and shortly after the park opened, it was surrounded by tacky hotels, tourist gift shops, and restaurants. His dream of a fully contained family-friendly theme park was now tinged with views of billboards and fast food restaurants. Walt swore that if he ever built another theme park, he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. He was sure they could control the surroundings, which would include first-class campsites and facilities for recreation and lodging.
In the early 1960s, Walt and a team of Imagineers, including his brother Roy and General Joe Potter (can you find his name anywhere in Walt Disney World?) Embarked on a top-secret venture, known simply as “Project X” (later known as “Project Florida”) to tour the nation in search of a new location for a second theme park. First of all, they were looking for a large amount of land … cheap! Second, they wanted it to be close to a major city, with good weather and excellent roads and infrastructure. Reportedly, when Walt’s plane crossed the intersection of I-4 and Route 192 in Florida, he knew he had found his place.
But how does Walt Disney go and buy thousands of acres of land without the landlords bearing exorbitant prices? It does not. Something like. Walt Disney created dozens of “fictitious” corporations, with names like “MT Lott” (got it? Empty lot?), “Latin-American Development and Managers Corporation” and “Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation” to buy seemingly worthless parcels. of lands ranging from swamps to cattle pastures. By May 1965, there had been significant land purchases in Osceola and Orange counties (southwest of Orlando), although no one realized (or suspected at first) that Disney had anything to do with it. One of the first purchases included 8,500 acres owned by Florida State Senator Irlo Bronson.
In late June of that same year, the Orlando Sentinel reported in an article that more than 27,000 acres had recently changed hands. Speculation started that big corporations like Ford, McDonnell-Douglas, Hughes Aircraft, and Boeing (since Kennedy Space Center was nearby), like, yes, even Walt Disney. However, in October, Orlando Sentinel reporter Emily Bavar, after confirming her suspicions after several unreceptive responses from Disney employees, published the story that it was Walt Disney who had been secretly behind the purchases of all this land. Of course, once it was revealed that Disney was behind the purchases, land prices jumped over 1000%! That’s partly why Walt bought his first acre of land in Florida for Walt Disney World for $ 80.00 and his last one for $ 80,000.00!
Disney quickly scheduled a press conference and confirmed the story. With the governor of the state of Florida and his brother Roy by his side, Walt described the $ 1 billion project that would become Walt Disney World. In exchange for bringing such a boost to the area’s economy, creating thousands of jobs, and improving the environment and infrastructure of central Florida, Disney received permission to establish its own self-government, known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District. This quasi-government gave Disney the ability to create its own building codes, do its own zoning and planning of roads and bridges, and create its own residential community, among other advantages.
When Walt Disney bought the 47 square miles that would become the Walt Disney World Resort as we know it today, it was nothing more than a desolate swamp, scrub forests, and groves of groves. To transform this area into the number one vacation destination in the world, large amounts of land had to be moved. Furthermore, since much of central Florida is essentially “floating” on a body of water, it presented an overwhelming challenge. Disney had to transform this land, while balancing the needs of the environment and the ecology of the area. If any part of the water supply was damaged or removed, it would have caused a massive ecological imbalance in the region.
The first thing Disney did was reserve a 7,500-acre Conservation Area in 1970, which would never be built. This would preserve the cypress trees and provide land for the natural inhabitants of the area. Second, they developed an engineering marvel by creating a system of more than 55 miles of canals and levees to control water levels. Disney Imagineer John Hench designed this network of canals to blend into the natural landscape, rather than being built in straight lines. The mechanisms that control water levels are fully automated and require no monitoring and little maintenance. Quite impressive considering the property is roughly twice the size of Manhattan!
Currently, the two municipalities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista are home to Walt Disney World. These two cities are governed by Disney employees who live on the property in a small group of “backstage” houses. Although the permanent residential population of these cities is very small (population 20 in 2003), it is home to millions of families who, for a short time, call Bay Lake “home.”
Over the years, Disney purchased an additional 3,000 acres, bringing the total size of Walt Disney World Resort to more than 30,000 acres. Less than a year after the formal public announcement that the Disney Company had, in fact, purchased all of that land near the intersections of major US 192 and Interstate 4 highways, it declared, “Here in Florida, we have something special that has never I enjoyed Disneyland … the blessing of the size. There is enough land here to house all the ideas and plans we can imagine. ” With only about 1/4 of the entire property developed, it seems like he was right.