Main Street, U.S.A. is the first “themed land” inside the main entrance of the Disneyland-style parks. Main Street, U.S.A. is patterned after a typical Midwest town of the early 20th century, and took much inspiration from Walt Disney’s hometown, Marceline, Missouri. Main Street, U.S.A. has a train station along the park’s respective Disney railroad above the entrance. The area closest to the entrance is called Town Square.
Main Street, U.S.A. has a train station, town square, movie theater, city hall, firehouse with a steam-powered pump engine, emporium, shops, arcades, double-decker bus, horse-drawn streetcar, and jitneys. Main Street is also home to the Disney Art Gallery and the Opera House which showcases Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, a show featuring an Audio-Animatronic version of the president.
Town Square is home to City Hall, in which the Guest Relations office is located. Further along Main Street, the names painted in the windows on Main Street serve as credits for some of the many people, Imagineers and others, who contributed in some way to the creation of Disneyland. Largely they appear as fictional businesses (gyms, realtors, dentists), and they often refer to a hobby or interest that the person honored. Ub Iwerks’s window, for example, refers to his prowess with cameras.
At the far end of Main Street, U.S.A. is Sleeping Beauty Castle, the Partners statue, and the Central Plaza (also known as the Hub), which is a portal to most of the themed lands: the entrance to Fantasyland is by way of a drawbridge across a moat and through the castle. Adventureland, Frontierland, and Tomorrowland are on both sides of the castle. Several lands are not directly connected to the Central Plaza—namely, New Orleans Square, Critter Country, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Mickey’s Toontown.
Inspired by Walt Disney’s hometown of Marceline, Missouri (as in the film Lady and the Tramp), Main Street, U.S.A. is designed to resemble the center of an idealized turn-of-the-20th-century (1910) American town.
The design of Main Street, U.S.A. uses the technique of forced perspective to create an illusion of height. Buildings along Main Street are built at 3⁄4 scale on the first level, then 5⁄8 on the second story, and 1⁄2 scale on the third—reducing the scale by 1⁄8 each level up.
Walt Disney said, “For those of us who remember the carefree time it recreates, Main Street will bring back happy memories. For younger visitors, it is an adventure in turning back the calendar to the days of their grandfather’s youth.”
Above the firehouse in Town Square at Disneyland is Walt Disney’s personal apartment, fully furnished but off-limits to the public. A lamp is kept burning in the front window as a tribute to his memory, except at Christmas where a small tannenbaum replaces the lamp. It is largely decorated for both Halloween and Christmas.
The Main Street Opera House in Town Square is the oldest building in Disneyland. It formerly served as the park’s lumber mill between 1955 and 1961. The cannons that are displayed in the center of the square were used by the French army during the 1800s, although they were never fired in battle. The gas lamps that line the street originally came from St. Louis and were bought for $.03 a pound.
Partners, sculpted by Blaine Gibson, was added in 1993. During the Halloween season, pumpkin busts for each themed land in the park, except Main Street, are seen around “Partners.” It is listed as a real street in the Orange County Thomas Guide.
There is a 60-foot-tall (18 m) Christmas tree during Christmas Time, and there is a 16-foot-high (4.9 m) Mickey Mouse jack-o-lantern on Halloween Time, with additional pumpkin ears. In the circular hub in front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle, the bronze “Partners” statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse is surrounded by smaller bronzes of familiar Disney characters, such as Donald Duck and the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.
The Disney Gallery
The Disney Gallery is an attraction and merchandise location at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, United States. The Gallery is a changing exhibition area focused primarily on artwork from Walt Disney Imagineering created in the designing of the Disneyland theme park. Merchandise relating to the current exhibition is usually available for purchase as well.
The Disney Gallery comprised several rooms and antechambers, as it was designed to be living quarters for the Disney family. Each room contained its own set of artwork and usually revolved around a certain theme that pertained to the overall exhibit.
Disneyland Railroad
The Disneyland Railroad is a 3-foot (914 mm) narrow-gauge heritage railroad and attraction in the Disneyland theme park of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, in the United States.
The railroad has been consistently billed as one of Disneyland’s top attractions. Its route is 1.2 miles (1.9 km) long and encircles the majority of the park, with train stations in four different park areas. The rail line, which was constructed by WED Enterprises, operates with two steam locomotives built by WED and three historic steam locomotives originally built by Baldwin Locomotive Works.
The attraction was conceived by Walt Disney, who drew inspiration from the ridable miniature Carolwood Pacific Railroad built in his backyard. The Disneyland Railroad opened to the public at Disneyland’s grand opening on July 17, 1955. Since that time, multiple alterations have been made to its route, including the addition of two large dioramas in the late 1950s and mid-1960s. Several changes have been made to its rolling stock, including the conversion of one of its train cars into a parlor car in the mid-1970s, and the switch from diesel oil to biodiesel to fuel its locomotives in the late 2000s.
Beginning at Main Street, U.S.A. Station adjacent to Disneyland’s entrance, where a pump-style handcar built by the Kalamazoo Manufacturing Company can be seen on a siding, the trains of the Disneyland Railroad travel along its single track in a clockwise direction on its circular route.
Once the signal light in the locomotive turns green, the journey from the Main Street, U.S.A. section begins with the train traversing a small bridge, passing by the Adventureland section, and going through a tunnel before arriving at New Orleans Square Station in the New Orleans Square section. While the train is stopped at this station, where the locomotive takes on water from the railroad’s water tower if needed, a sound effect of a telegraph operator using a telegraph key to enter Morse code can be heard emanating from the old Frontierland Station depot building.
After the journey restarts, the train travels past the Haunted Mansion dark ride attraction, enters a tunnel through the Splash Mountain log flume attraction, and crosses a trestle bridge over the Critter Country section. It then moves over another trestle bridge that wraps around the Rivers of America in the Frontierland section, and rolls through another tunnel before reaching Mickey’s Toontown Depot between the Mickey’s Toontown and Fantasyland sections. While the train is stopped at this station, a non-functioning water tower can be seen on the opposite side of the track to the station’s depot building.
Once the journey resumes, the train moves across an overpass and passes by the façade of the It’s a Small World water-based dark ride attraction before reaching a fuel pump disguised as a boulder, where the train stops if the locomotive needs to be refueled. From this point, the train cuts across an access road and goes underneath the track of the Disneyland Monorail before stopping at Tomorrowland Station in the Tomorrowland section.
When the journey continues, the train goes across another access road and enters a tunnel containing the Grand Canyon Diorama followed by the Primeval World Diorama. As the train runs alongside the Grand Canyon Diorama, the main theme from On the Trail, the third movement of Ferde Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite, can be heard; and as the train runs alongside the Primeval World Diorama, music from the 1961 film Mysterious Island can be heard. Shortly after leaving the tunnel, the train arrives back at Main Street, U.S.A. Station, completing what the park refers to as The Grand Circle Tour.
Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln
Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln is a stage show featuring an Audio-Animatronic representation of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, best known for being presented at Disneyland since 1965. Today Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln is an element of the Disneyland attraction The Disneyland Story presenting Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, which opened in 2009.
Walt Disney originally conceived of a show that would pay tribute to all U.S. Presidents as part of a proposed extension of Main Street, U.S.A. in the 1950s. However, the technology at the time would not permit a show on the scale Disney wanted, and the Main Street extension proposal was abandoned. Disney’s Imagineers opted to focus instead on creating a tribute to Lincoln, Disney’s boyhood hero.
The present-day attraction features a pre-show consisting of exhibits on the history of Disneyland. The main show features a short biographical film on Lincoln and an updated version of the original show.
Main Street Cinema
The Main Street Cinema is a small movie theater currently located on Main Street, U.S.A. at Disneyland. When the theater opened on the park’s opening day on July 17, 1955, the cinema showed many silent movies, including films starring Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks.
In the 1970’s, these were replaced with several Disney shorts on six different screens while a recorded musical accompaniment plays. Five of the six shorts are played without sound and are changed from time to time. The sixth short is always Mickey Mouse’s 1928 cartoon classic Steamboat Willie, it includes an introduction prepared for a 1950s reissue reminding the viewer when the short was created, and that it is still screening today worldwide.
Main Street Vehicles
All of the vehicles found on Main Street, U.S.A., grouped together as the Main Street Vehicles attraction, were designed to accurately reflect turn-of-the-century vehicles, including a 3 ft (914 mm) gauge tramway featuring horse-drawn streetcars, a double-decker bus, a fire engine, and an automobile. They are available for one-way rides along Main Street, U.S.A. The horse-drawn streetcars are also used by the park entertainment, including The Dapper Dans.
The horseless carriages are modeled after cars built in 1903 and are two-cylinder, four-horsepower (3 kW) engines with manual transmission and steering. Walt Disney used to drive the fire engine around the park before it opened, and it has been used to host celebrity guests and in the parades. Most of the original main street vehicles were designed by Bob Gurr.
The Dapper Dans
The Dapper Dans are a barbershop quartet that performs at Disneyland in Anaheim, California (since 1959). While the group usually performs as a quartet, they actually have up to twelve singers at each park, plus occasional substitutes. This allows them to have multiple quartets performing separately or to combine and form a larger ensemble.
The Dans at Disneyland can be seen on their custom four-seater bicycle and in various locations around Main Street. They can be found on the horse-drawn trolley in the morning, and all over Main Street USA during the afternoon, where visitors can be serenaded by the Dans while having their hair cut in a barbershop.
Halloween Screams
Halloween Screams: A Villainous Surprise in the Skies is a Halloween-themed fireworks show that is presented at Disneyland during the seasonal Mickey’s Halloween Party event. Based on the similarly-themed, former fireworks show HalloWishes at Magic Kingdom, Halloween Screams is hosted by Jack Skellington and features appearances from Disney Villains and music from Disney animated features.
The show opens with the overture from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, an instrumental medley of songs from the film including “What`s This?” and “Making Christmas”. Zero (Jack Skellington’s dog from the film) flies above Sleeping Beauty Castle. He is shortly joined by Jack, or rather his head (in the form of projection onto a sphere shaped balloon), located on the upper left of the castle. These projections can also be viewed along the Rivers of America, which recycle the mist screens used in Fantasmic!. There are only searchlights and projection mapping used in the show’s introduction. No actual pyrotechnics are used for the first two minutes.
Jack and Zero fade into the night and the first pyrotechnics are launched when “Grim Grinning Ghosts”, from the Disneyland attraction the Haunted Mansion, begins to play. Projections of rising ghosts make an appearance on the castle. The music from “Grim Grinning Ghosts” changes to an upbeat pop tempo, as synchronized isobar flames, shoot up from both sides of the castle. Then the mood is set with “This is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Then Disney’s most infamous villains begin to arrive, beginning with Ursula (from The Little Mermaid). The guests are serenaded with a montage of Disney’s most spookiest music. Later, Oogie Boogie (from The Nightmare Before Christmas) soon follows, and arriving last is Maleficent (from Sleeping Beauty), showing guests how Halloween should really be celebrated. The party ends with Jack and Zero initiating the “scream-along” grand finale.
Disney’s Celebrate America
Disney’s Celebrate America is a seasonal fireworks show at Disneyland, California. The 15-minute show, produced by Walt Disney Creative Entertainment under creative director Steve Davison, celebrates the traditions, spirit and music of the United States of America, and is shown in lieu of the regular fireworks shows on both July 3 and 4.
Believe… In Holiday Magic
Believe… In Holiday Magic is a holiday fireworks show at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, launched in 2000. The show runs for much of the Disneyland Resort’s holiday season, which typically runs from the second weekend of November to the first weekend of the following January.
In 2000, Disneyland premiered a fireworks show called Believe… There’s Magic in the Stars to celebrate its 45th anniversary. The show was so successful in its first couple of months that Disney decided to premiere a holiday version the following holiday season. This version used music from various classic Christmas songs together in order to create a thirteen-minute fireworks spectacular. The holiday version was very popular, especially the finale which culminated in “snow” falling in various areas of the park.
Believe… In Holiday Magic has run every holiday season since 2000, with the exception of the 2005 and 2015 holiday season, when Disney opted to continue performing Remember… Dreams Come True in observance of the Disneyland Resort’s 50th anniversary and Disneyland Forever in observance of the Disneyland Resort’s 60th Diamond Celebration.
Disneyland
The Disneyland Park, is the first of two theme parks built at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, opened on July 17, 1955. It is the only theme park designed and built to completion under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. It was originally the only attraction on the property; its official name was changed to Disneyland Park to distinguish it from the expanding complex in the 1990s. It was the first Disney theme park.
Since its opening, Disneyland has undergone expansions and major renovations, including the addition of New Orleans Square in 1966, Bear Country (now Critter Country) in 1972, Mickey’s Toontown in 1993, and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in 2019. Opened in 2001, Disney California Adventure Park was built on the site of Disneyland’s original parking lot.
Disneyland Park consists of nine themed “lands” and a number of concealed backstage areas, and occupies over 100 acres. The park opened with Main Street, U.S.A., Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland, and has since added New Orleans Square in 1966, Bear Country (now known as Critter Country) in 1972, and Mickey’s Toontown in 1993, and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in 2019.