Disneyland's 'Golden Age'

Most things that have a long history and enjoy enduring popularity are ultimately tagged with a 'Golden Age' -- a period in which the thing in question hit its stride, was at its most compelling and assured itself of a long future among fans. Disneyland is no different. Question is, what is the park's Golden Age?

The period that I propose has good news and bad news for Disneyland fans. The good news is that Disneyland's Golden Age (IMO) lasted for a full decade. The bad news is that it's nearly forty years since it ended. Humbly, I suggest that this Golden Age lasted from 1959 to 1969.

During that period, Disneyland built the Matterhorn Bobsled attraction, the Monorail, Submarine Voyage, opened New Orleans Square (and along with it Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion), redesigned Tomorrowland and brought several attractions from their efforts at the New York World's Fair of 1964 to the park (including It's a Small World, the Carousel of Progress, the Primeval World segment of the Disneyland RR and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln).

By 1959, Walt Disney and his team of Imagineers had learned a great deal about theme park entertainment and were applying those lessons to ever more sophisticated attractions. What's more, Disney was attending to what he considered to be 'shortcomings' or 'blank spots' at Disneyland. Unlike the period leading up to Disneyland's opening in 1955, there was money for widespread growth by '59. With Walt Disney still calling the shots, concerns of 'practical business thinking' preventing these new attractions was non-existent. They would go ahead because the boss decided they would.

As a result, we enjoy some of the most popular attractions the park has ever had to offer that came from this period. Unfortunately, a Golden Age wouldn't be golden if it went on forever. I really feel as though once the Haunted Mansion was opened in 1969, this great period of creativity and expansion ended. Sure, the addition of Bear Country (later to be renamed Critter Country) in 1972, the 1983 much needed Fantasyland facelift and 1998 Tomorrowland revision were all major projects, but none of them had the same impact as those ten years I cite as being top-of-the-heap.