From my weekly Walt Disney World fansite newsletter comes this bit of Disney trivia from Mike Scopa. Now, most of you have probably never heard of Mike Scope, but in the WDW fansite community, he is one of the major players (sort of like who Bob Costas is to those who enjoy discussing and reading about baseball). Mike Scopa has probably forgotten more about Walt Disney World than I will ever know. Anyway, he has this to say:
I had heard a variation on this story before - that in said meeting, August Busch stood up and announced that anyone who wanted to open a theme park anywhere near St. Louis would, of course, sell only Anheiser-Busch products. When Walt said that no alcohol would be served at all, Mr. Busch withdrew his support, and that the deal fell through without Busch being on board.
Either way, this screams “Urban Legend.” Snopes has nothing to say about it. Anyone have any scoop?
According to this article, the supposed problem was a dispute over whether alcohol would be served at the proposed park. It also has a different date, 1964, and that St. Louis was being promoted, not ground about to be struck*.
However, the real reason, according to the article, is that it wasn’t financially viable (land in Florida was so freaking cheap.)
Edit: This book confirms the economics. They couldn’t anticipate more than a 5% return on investment.
*: You don’t buy all the land for a giant theme park and change your mind that late. I don’t buy it.
And of course, in FLorida you can run the park year-round. Sure, you can be open in St. Louis all year, but through the winter months you’re not going to get nearly so many people (it gets cold, if not relentlessly heavy snowfalls).
I don’t buy it. Disneyworld is very expemnsive to run and relies on attracting a constant stream of visitors. In fact, some parts of winter are the strongest months (near Christmas). I don’t see people shivering in the cold in Missouri to go on Big Thunder Mountain in the freezing rain. In Disneyworld and Land, they can and do go out in all weather because it’s warm.
Well, they do it in Tokyo - although admittedly, Tokyo doesn’t get much snow and the temperature rarely drops below zero Celsius. And hell, I imagine Paris gets a little nippy in the winter, too, but Disneyland Paris is open year-round.
And I’m not convinced the cost of land killed the deal. This was the early 1960’s, when 35 miles west of St. Louis there was a whole lot of nothing. I remember, as a kid, going to Six Flags in Eureka (30ish miles from the city) and passing through large expanses of undeveloped forest between St. Louis and Six Flags (these days it’s all developed).
I wonder if Walt had any inkling of revenge in his mind when chosing the Florida location knowing it sat in close proximity to Busch Gardens in Tampa which opened a decade earlier and would compete with it.
You’re right about that, but the project was going to be in downtown St. Louis.
In my link to the book, Walt Disney’s Missouri*, it says Disney offered to continue pursuing the St. Louis project if he could get a similar price for land as he was getting in Florida, but St. Louis officials couldn’t do it.
The price per acre Disney bought in Florida, according to the numbers here, works out to roughly $182 an acre for 27,443 acres. According to this graph, the average price per acre for Missouri as a whole is in the same range at that time, but it would have been significantly higher downtown.
It does, and it is. We had a conference there in Jan a few years back - was pretty naff, TBH, but one highlight was walking across to the gala dinner in my tux in the snow. Was also very refreshing/sobering coming back at three in the morning
In Florida - the Magic Kingdom does not. The other three theme parks (Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom) do, as well as all resort hotels, plus the water parks.
In California - the Magic Kingdom does not (IIRC). Disney’s California Adventure does (IIRC).
It seems unlikely. In 1963, Busch Gardens wasn’t much more than an annex to the Tampa brewery tour. There was a tropical bird show, a few animal exhibits and a “Fairy Tale Land” for the kids, and that’s about it. They didn’t even charge admission back then.
I have always heard that the purchase of the land in Florida was done very covertly. Disney set up dummy coporations and a Disney lawyer flew back and forth to Florida but only on red eye flights so as not to be noticed by anyone in LA. It couldn’t all be purchased at once and if someone with a plot in the middle knew whom was buying the land it the price would have skyrocketed.
So I’m kind of doubting that Disney himself was attending meetings with the St. Louis PTB to talk about a proposed park that he didn’t have the land for already.
I’'ve heard about other parts of the US that were included in the original studies for a second Disney theme park.
Western New York
Advantages: huge percentage of the US and Canadian population within a eight hour drive, inexpensive land
Disadvantages: weather, weather, weather
Somewhere in Texas
Advantages: growing population able to be open year round.
Disadvantages: too far from the Northeast.
East or west coast of Florida
Advantages: better Interstate highway access than Orlando and Ocala, opportunity for oceanfront attractions and lodging
Disadvantages: hurricanes
naff = not good. Aside from the joys of a half-closed theme park in subzero temperatures and cheesy plastic imitiations of e.g. a yacht club bar, when I have to set an alarm call for 0700 after a very very heavy night my mood is not improved by the alarm call being a recording of Goofy burbling on about what a great day it is to go explore the park. Carbonated saccharine injected into the ear does not help hangovers.
Tokyo Disneyland does not, but in 2001 an adjacent park was opened called Tokyo Disney Sea. It’s a little more adult-themed than TDL, focusing more on shows and shops (but still a fair number of rides), and alcohol is served in the restaurants.
On Main Street in the Magic Kingdom, nearly all of the windows list the names of people who helped design the park, with the very last building on the right, over the ice cream shop, listing the name of Walt Disney himself. About halfway up the street, on the right hand side, there is a window that lists the names of several of these dummy corporations. Sadly I do not remember any beyond ‘Bonnet Creek Development Corporation’ and ‘Eye Four Investments’. Once word got out that it was in fact Walt looking at the land in the area, the prices of course skyrocketed.
Like you, I really have a hard time buying that he would talk to anyone about his land purchasing because it would have made building the park prohibitively expensive. Remember, Walt was rich, but not rolling in it to build such a park, and many of his rides had corporate sponsors to help defray the cost.
The legend is a little more detailed than that here in St. Louis – although no one can say whether it’s true.
The land in question was urban renewal land that was controlled by the Civic Center Redevelopment Corporation. Disney wouldn’t have had to negotiate to buy it, they were begging for developers to come and take it. CCRC was made up of some of the biggest business leaders in St. Louis, including August Busch.
“Five days away from breaking ground” is hyperbole, but the Disney people did at least consider St. Louis as a location, and August Busch (and the brewery) certainly had a lot influence on how downtown St. Louis would have been redeveloped. Did the two collide? I doubt there were any memos on the topic, and everyone who would have known firsthand is probably dead by now.
I don’t know whether there would have been enough land for Disney to build a theme park. Disneyland in Anaheim started on 160 acres; the park surrounding the Gateway Arch is only 91 acres – a Disneyland size development would have taken an immense amount of downtown real estate. That and the climate might have killed the deal right there.
As for Gussie Busch (or his minions) demanding that the park serve beer, it could certainly be possible. Rumor also has it that Busch was interested in building a new student union for the University of Missouri St. Louis, but discovered that the university’s charter forbid the selling of alcohol. Suddenly, St. Louis University had a nice new Busch Memorial Union that does sell beer.
