Vault of Walt | by Jim Korkis | Ayefour Publishing | Trade Paperback | 978-0-615-40242-0 | $19.95 | Order online

Excerpt taken from Part 3: Disney Park Stories

TOM SAWYER ISLAND

Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland underwent a major transformation in 2007 and became the Pirate’s Lair on Tom Sawyer Island, theming into the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, replacing the simple charm of Mark Twain’s world. Tom Sawyer Island at Walt Disney World’s Frontierland has remained the same for forty years and still showcases some of the original ideas Walt Disney had for the location at Disneyland.

“I put in all the things I wanted to do as a kid—and couldn’t,” Walt explained about the Disneyland Tom Sawyer Island to a Reader’s Digest reporter in 1960. “Including getting into something without a ticket.”

Tom Sawyer Island is truly the only part of Disneyland Park that Walt Disney single handedly designed himself. He always planned for there to be an island in the middle of the Rivers of America but he debated about what that island was going to be.

From Walt’s 1953 sales pitch for Disneyland:  “Treasure Island.  Mickey Mouse, the best known personality in the world has his Mickey Mouse Club headquarters at Disneyland located on Treasure Island in the middle of the river, a fantastic hollow tree and treehouse serves as the Club meeting place.  The hollow tree is several stories high, with interesting rooms and lookout spots for club members.  There is a Pirate cove and buried treasure on the island…and direct from this location the Club presents The Mickey Mouse Club Television Show.”

At one point, there were designs for the island that had included miniature reproductions of major American historical landmarks like Mount Vernon, Monticello, and Independence Hall that would have been viewed from the Mark Twain steamboat.

While many Disney fans know that Herb Ryman did the artwork of the original map of Disneyland and Peter Ellenshaw did the artwork for the huge map of Disneyland that Walt frequently used on the television program, few realize that it was Imagineer Marvin Davis who labored through dozens of map designs trying to find a workable pattern for the Disneyland that finally opened in 1955.  He struggled over the contours of Tom Sawyer Island but his efforts failed to please Walt Disney.

“Give me that thing,” Davis remembers Walt saying. That night Walt worked for hours in his red barn workshop in his backyard at his home in the Holmby Hills. The next morning, he laid tracing paper on Davis’s desk and said, “Now that’s the way it should be.” The island was built according to Walt’s design.

Marvin Davis stated, “The general shape of the island, the way it curves and so forth, was Walt’s idea. The idea for Pirate’s Cove on Tom Sawyer Island was also Walt’s.”

Imagineer Herb Ryman remembered, “I was originally called upon to name some of the nomenclature for Tom Sawyer Island. Walt came up to me and he said, ‘Herbie, would you think up some names?’ Obviously you think about Smuggler’s Gulch and Robber’s Cove and kind of inspiring names that little children would be excited about. And then later one day, Bill Cottrell told me, he and Walt rode around on the Mark Twain and Walt had this map in front of him where these names were allocated according to my designation. And Walt said, ‘Why should we let Herbie have all the fun and name all these names on the island? Why can’t I name these?’ And Bill said, ‘Yes, I think you could.’ So Walt re-named all these names.”

“When you go to Frontierland, make sure that Walt takes you to Tom Sawyer Island,” said Imagineer Dick Irvine to a Reader’s Digest reporter in 1960. “Walt was brought up in Missouri—Mark Twain country—and that island is all his. He didn’t let anybody help him design it.”

Actually, Vic Greene, the original art director for Frontierland, worked with Imagineers Herb Ryman and Claude Coats to produce the first designs for the Island based on Walt’s ideas, including the barrel bridge that appeared in 1957. Sam McKim did some finished renderings for the Old Mill and Fort Wilderness as well as the tree house. Bill Evans did the landscaping. Emile Kuri located some “second hand” animals at a museum to install on the remote end of the island.

During the second week of June 1956, advertisements appeared of a raft with a pirate skull-and-crossbones flag making its way to Tom Sawyer Island. It proclaimed:

“Now Open at Disneyland! Another NEW attraction! Tom Sawyer Island! Cross the river on A RAFT…explore INJUN JOE’S CAVE…with the SUSPENSION BRIDGE…visit FORT WILDERNESS…see the BURNING SETTLER’S CABIN. Relive exciting days out of America’s lusty past. Explore all the magical mysteries of an island built just for FUN! Whatever you want to do, you will find fun and excitement for the whole family at this newest Disneyland attraction…Tom Sawyer Island.”

A billboard during the construction announced that the island would open June 1st. It didn’t. Opening ceremonies were held at noon on Saturday June 16, 1956 at the raft landing on the island. Two young guests were on hand in costume as Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher, and appeared in many newspaper and magazine photos with Walt.

The two children from Hannibal, Missouri, Perva Lou Smith and Chris Winkler, had won the very first of the now-annual “Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher” contests in Hannibal.

Although they did not know it when they competed, an added bonus for Hannibal’s 1956 Tom and Becky was a chance to travel to Disneyland, stay at the Disneyland Hotel and together with Walt Disney himself preside over the dedication ceremonies of Tom Sawyer Island.

Perva Lou and Chris carried with them from Hannibal water from the Mississippi River and earth from Jackson’s Island (the model for the island frequented by Tom and Huck in Twain’s novels).  With Walt’s help, the two kids christened the raft with a jug of Mississippi River water and planted a box of soil from Jackson’s Island near the foot of the landing pier. The island was “officially” made a part of Missouri.

After the dedication, there was a tour of the island, including Injun Joe’s Cave (actually an above-ground building covered with earth and landscaping to give the illusion of descending into a cave), Huckleberry Finn’s Fishing Pier (the area was stocked with 15,000 catfish, perch and bluegill for guests to catch with a bamboo pole and a worm and Walt caught a fish for the press that day but it got away before he could land it), Fort Wilderness, and other points of interest.

One of the biggest kids of all was Walt Disney himself, who once the island was officially opened, would often take a pole and fish from the dock with the other youngsters. One day, after fishing for some time without so much as a nibble, Disney turned to the dock attendant and said, “There’s no fish in the river!”

The attendant replied, “There’s fish there, all right, but the water’s so muddy, they can’t even see the bait.”

Walt responded, “Well, I fished the Missouri River and it was a lot muddier than this, but the fish sure saw the bait!”

The fishing was soon eliminated because it became quite a challenge for guests to walk around Disneyland the rest of the day with their increasingly pungent catch that soon ended up discarded in some unusual locations.