A Town Square Full of History

Entering Disneyland, we find ourselves in the Town Square of Main Street, U.S.A. It's a bustling community at the turn of the last century, where horse cars and motorcars coexist and gas lamps and electric lamps can be found side by side. This is a town in transition, making progress while keeping a firm footing in the past.

There's also plenty of Disneyland past to be found in Town Square. This area of the park still looks much as it did that hot July day in 1955, when Walt Disney stepped forward to read the park's dedication:

To all who come to this happy place, Welcome.

Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past,

and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future.

Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts

that have created America,

with the hope that it will be a source of joy

and inspiration to all the world.

A plaque bearing that dedication sits at the center of Town Square, near the base of the flag pole. That ornate base has a history of its own. During construction of the park, lead Art Director Emile Kuri came across an automobile accident on Wilshire Blvd, where a car had knocked over a streetlamp. Impressed with the ornate styling of the base of the streetlamp, Kuri offered to take it off the city's hands. He paid $5 for it as scrap metal and hauled it away himself for painting and installation at Disneyland.

Positioned on each of the south-facing corners of Town Square is a pair of antique cannons, similar to those found in civic parks across the country. These are actual late-19th century cannons, manufactured by the Hotchkiss arms company of France. Legend tells that they were made for the French Army, but never used in battle. Hotchkiss also sold guns, though, to other countries, including the United States. The U.S. Army purchased at least fifty of them, starting in the 1870s. The exact origin of these cannons (and how they came to Disneyland) is a story that seems to have been lost to history, but considering that Walt Disney spent a year with the Red Cross Ambulance Corps in France during World War I, it's not surprising to find them here.

From Town Square, a careful observer might also spot something that's been here since before there was a Disneyland. Prior to construction, the site in Anaheim was made up primarily of orange groves. To help protect their crop from the Santa Ana winds, farmers planted rows of eucalyptus trees as a windbreak. A stand of those trees still exists, providing a visual barrier between Adventureland and the backside of Main Street. Just look up beyond City Hall, and you'll see the very tops of those trees, now well over 100 years old.