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One of the most interesting facets of Walt Disney’s personal life was the great love he had for miniatures. In fact, he created an entire ride in Disneyland, California that was devoted just to them. Storybook Land, located in Fantasyland, showcases miniature buildings recreated from various Disney films from the 1930s onward.
How is it then that a scaled-down version of Maine’s West Quoddy Head Lighthouse tower is also found associated with this attraction today? Was there ever a Disney story or film that was linked to this well-known Maine lighthouse?
The history of Storybook Land, including this 62-year-old faux lighthouse tower, goes back to the very beginnings of Walt’s plans for the Park. A 1953 sales pitch that Walt’s brother, Roy O. Disney, gave in New York to raise money to build Disneyland included a description of “Lilliputian Land. A Land of Little Things,” where guests would board “an Erie Canal barge that takes you through the famous canals of the world, where you visit the scenic wonders of the world in miniature.”
In 1955, when Disneyland opened, this attraction was included as one of the original Fantasyland rides named “Canal Boats of the World.” Unfortunately, other than the canal and the boats, there wasn’t much scenic wonder to be seen back then. Walt ran out of money and time, and when opening day came, guests were treated to mud banks with weeds abounding. In an effort to hide the fact that it was so unfinished, Walt had Latin plant names put on stakes next to the weeds to make guests think that it had been landscaped with those plants.
Within a couple of months after opening in July of 1955, the area was closed down in order to create a more finished ride. Miniature houses and story scenes were added, major landscaping done, and in order to add an element of drama and suspense that children would appreciate, Monstro the whale from Pinocchio was built at the entrance to literally swallow the boats as they started their adventure into this miniaturized land.
Each ride at Disneyland during the early years utilized single-ride tickets, so there needed to be a booth constructed near the entrance queue to sell them. What better themed ticket booth to go with this ocean scene from Pinocchio than a lighthouse?
The scaled-down tower was around 14 feet in height and accessed through the back. It was just wide enough to comfortably hold one person on the inside selling tickets through a small window. The lantern at the top has always held a non-Fresnel rotating beacon of some sort that flashed every few seconds, giving a sense of realism to the faux light.
With the newly designed elements in place, the ride re-opened on June 16, 1956 and was renamed “Storybook Land Canal Boats,” which aptly described the combination of a canal boat ride within a landscape filled with miniaturized Disney storybook scenes.
The new faux lighthouse was painted with a daymark of thick horizontal red and white bands. While no real lighthouse is an exact match, the daymark most closely resembled the first Sapelo Island Lighthouse in Georgia.
The Disney imagineer who was in charge of the initial 1956 design, theming, and construction of Storybook Land was Ken Anderson, who had a very long career with Disney spanning 44 years. Walt Disney referred to Ken as a “Jack of All Trades” because he had the ability to accomplish anything that Walt assigned him in any media, whether in film or working on park design and construction.
Fast forward 20 years to 1975 when Ken was assigned as the animation art director for a new Disney film, Pete's Dragon, that was based on an unpublished book manuscript by Seton Miller and S.S. Field. The plot of the film took place in a Maine fishing village around 1900, where a young orphan boy took refuge in a lighthouse with an old keeper, “Lampie,” and his daughter.
Ken worked alongside art director Jack Martin Smith for the duration of the film. According to a press release issued in 1977 upon the film’s release, Smith spoke of researching early 20th century Maine in order to add authenticity and realism to the story and bring credibility to the film. The greatest feat toward that end was the construction of a 52-foot lighthouse replica out on the cliffs of Point Buchon overlooking Morro Bay in California to use as the set. It cost $115,000 and took 50 men three weeks to complete it. When the filming was complete, the lighthouse set was entirely dismantled with the intention of installing it either at Disneyland or Walt Disney World, but for whatever reason, that was never done.
What is interesting is the choice of the faux lighthouse’s name and design. It was not taken from the unpublished book. Instead, it came out of the research done in preparation for the film. The Pete’s Dragon lighthouse was named Passamaquoddy Light. It was a tapered octagonal shape, covered in wood shingles and painted white. From these two facts, it is very apparent that some of the research done by Smith for the film included a study of the historical government documents pertaining to West Quoddy Head Lighthouse.
In 1807, the United States Lighthouse Board submitted documents to Congress requesting funding for a lighthouse to be built at Passamaquoddy Head in Maine. The name was later shortened to West Quoddy Head. The specifications for the design of the lighthouse stated that it was to be an octagon pyramid of wood and 45 feet in height to the floor of the lantern. “The frame to be covered with good inch seasoned white pine boards feather edged, over which is to be laid a good coat of cedar or white pine (without sap) shingles and to be painted with three coats of good paint, the last two of which to be white.”
There are no photos in existence of the first West Quoddy Head Light. Perhaps taking a good look at the Pete’s Dragon lighthouse will give an idea of what that early light could have looked like. The first West Quoddy Head tower only lasted until 1831 when a rubblestone tower took its place. The classic red and white banded daymark was added around that time, and continued subsequently on the upgraded tower that was built in 1857 and remains to this day.
So, what does this have to do with the Storybook Land lighthouse at Disneyland? Fast forward again another couple of years from the 1977 release of Pete's Dragon to the early 1980s. Ken Anderson had officially retired in 1978, but still occasionally did project work for Disney. Fantasyland was badly in need of an upgrade, so Ken agreed to work on the project and helped create many of the new designs.
One of the things that changed during the rehab was the line queue area for Storybook Land. It was shifted to the right about 40 feet. Tickets to Disneyland had also changed to a single-entry fee by then, so there was no need for a ticket booth next to the attraction; however, they decided to keep the lighthouse at the new queue entrance as part of the ride’s decorative set elements.
When the “new” Fantasyland opened in 1983, the faux lighthouse sported its new West Quoddy Head daymark banding of thin alternating horizontal red and white stripes. It is a well-known fact that Disney imagineers often incorporated things from previous movies and attractions into new designs and rides to keep some of that history alive, particularly if it had special meaning to them. Disney also tries to theme elements of rides to relate to previous films and other Disney references wherever possible.
So, it would be entirely reasonable to suggest that because Ken Anderson had done the original Storybook Land design in 1956, worked on Pete’s Dragon, and then participated in the redesign of the ride in 1983, that he had either suggested or approved the daymark change to replicate West Quoddy Head Light as a nod to his work on Pete’s Dragon and to the Passamaquoddy references in the film.
It is also possible that the daymark idea could have come from other set designers and engineers who had worked on Pete’s Dragon and then went on to work on the Fantasyland rehab project. In either case, it appears that someone knew what they were doing in painting the lighthouse to match West Quoddy Head Light.
There is no definitive proof of this in the Disney archives by way of documented paperwork, but former archives director Dave Smith agrees that it sounds like a logical assumption.
Since 1983, the only other time the daymark has changed colors was during Disneyland’s 50th anniversary year in 2005 when it displayed gold bands marking it as one of the original attractions when the Park opened in 1955. Following the anniversary celebrations, it went back to its West Quoddy Head daymark and has been that way up to the present day.
Anyone who has seen the real West Quoddy Head lighthouse in person can enjoy their visit to Disneyland all the more when they pass by the Storybook Land lighthouse and give a nod of recognition back.
This story appeared in the
Jan/Feb 2019 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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