Did You Know?

Walt Disney's original plan was a modest 8-acre "Mickey Mouse Park" on a lot across the street from his Burbank studio. The idea outgrew the lot long before it outgrew Walt.

The idea for Disneyland came from Walt sitting on a bench at Griffith Park while his daughters rode the carousel, wishing there were somewhere families could play together instead of parents just watching.

Artist Herb Ryman drew the very first rendering of Disneyland over a single weekend in 1953, working alongside Walt, so Roy Disney would have something to show bankers in New York on Monday.

That hand-drawn weekend map later sold at auction for more than $700,000.

Disneyland was partly financed by ABC. In exchange, Walt gave the network a weekly television show - also called 'Disneyland' - which doubled as a year-long commercial for the park being built.

The entire park was built in roughly one year, on former orange groves in Anaheim.

Walt called opening day 'Black Sunday.' Counterfeit tickets let in roughly twice the expected crowd, a plumbers' strike meant many drinking fountains didn't work, and fresh asphalt was soft enough that women's heels sank into it.

Opening day was broadcast live to millions - and one of the on-camera hosts was a future U.S. president, Ronald Reagan.

Disneyland's opening day was technically a press preview. The park opened to the general public the next day.

Walt was the original voice of Mickey Mouse, and voiced him for about two decades.

Roy O. Disney came out of retirement to finish the Florida project after Walt's death, and insisted the resort be named 'Walt Disney World' so nobody would forget whose dream it was. He died less than three months after it opened.

Walt's company was originally named WED Enterprises - his initials, Walter Elias Disney. It's now known as Walt Disney Imagineering.

The word 'Imagineering' - imagination plus engineering - wasn't coined by Disney. Alcoa used it in the 1940s; Disney borrowed it and made it famous.

Walt had a miniature steam railroad in his own backyard called the Carolwood Pacific, complete with a tunnel that ran beneath his wife's flower bed - she made him sign a formal right-of-way agreement for it.

Walt's backyard train is widely credited as the seed of the whole park. The railroad came first; Disneyland grew around it.

There's an apartment above the Main Street Fire Station where Walt stayed. A lamp still burns in its window, and cast members keep it lit as a tribute.

Main Street's buildings shrink as they rise. The ground floor is roughly full scale, the upper floors progressively smaller - a trick called forced perspective that makes the street feel grander than it is.

The same trick works in reverse on the way out: heading toward the exit, Main Street looks shorter than it did coming in, so tired guests feel closer to the gate.

Sleeping Beauty Castle is only about 77 feet tall - far smaller than it looks. The stones get smaller toward the top to fake the height.

Sleeping Beauty Castle's drawbridge is real and functional, but it's been lowered ceremonially only a couple of times in the park's entire history.

The plaque at the base of the Main Street flagpole carries Walt's dedication: to all who come to this happy place, welcome.

Above the entrance tunnels is a plaque reading 'Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy.' Most guests walk right under it without looking up.

Main Street's upper-story windows are the park's version of movie credits - each honors a person who helped build Disneyland. Getting a window is one of the highest honors a Disney employee can receive.

One Main Street window honors Elias Disney, Walt's father, credited as a contractor - a nod to the fact that he really did work construction.

Disneyland is surrounded by a raised earthen berm specifically so you can't see the outside world from inside the park.

Several Disneyland attractions actually extend beyond the berm. Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion both send you into show buildings that sit outside the park's boundary.

Because Disneyland's Haunted Mansion had no room to build downward, its stretching room is secretly an elevator carrying you below ground. At Magic Kingdom there was space, so the walls genuinely stretch upward instead.

The Haunted Mansion's exterior was finished years before the ride opened. The building sat complete and empty while Imagineers argued over whether it should be scary or funny.

The Mansion is home to exactly 999 happy haunts - with room for a thousand.

The Hatbox Ghost was removed from the Haunted Mansion within weeks of opening because the effect didn't work in the dark. Fans kept his legend alive for 46 years until he returned in 2015.