History of the Magic Kingdom

When Walt Disney envisioned Disney World in 1959, the Magic Kingdom was not his first idea for a park in the resort. Actually, Walt Disney believed that the first park that he should build in Disney World should have been the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (Epcot).

While Walt Disney did plan to include a Magic Kingdom in his new Florida resort, he first wanted to build an educational center that would fascinate people and encourage technological advancement in every aspect of life. His experience with Disneyland, while very successful, had caused him to want to veer temporarily away from sheer amusements.

Walt Disney had already experienced great success with Disneyland California when he decided to build a park east of the Mississippi River. Two factors spurred him to build a new resort. First, people east of the Mississippi would not make the trip as far as Anaheim, California to visit his theme park and second, too many undesirable businesses built up and encompassed Disneyland in Anaheim after Disneyland proved to be a significant draw.

Because Walt Disney died in 1966, he did not ever see the completion of his 25,000-acre resort. His experience in Anaheim had given him the foresight to purchase much more property than his resort would need so that he could control the businesses that grew up around the Disney parks, but he never got to see his plan come in to fruition.

After Walt Disney's death, his brother Roy took the reins of the Disney Company and decided to build the Magic Kingdom as the first phase of the resort. Though the resort began with this one park and only three Disney Resort hotels, it has since grown into four theme parks, two water parks and twenty-three themed resort hotels.

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