In our last Reedy Creek Improvement District article, I shared a lot of information that I had pulled from Walt Disney Productions’ annual report of 1966. That fiscal year had closed back on September 30th of that same year. Staffers then pulled together the necessary info for this report about the various divisions at Disney. And the report itself was published on December 9, 1966.
Then Walt died just six days later on December 15, 1966.
Walt Disney Productions’ Annual Report – Revisions After Walt’s Death
This is why that year’s annual report came with a wraparound. A document that had been hastily attached to the outside of that physical booklet. Which would then acknowledge … Well, the obvious.
I’m quoting from this wraparound now:
An Important Message to Our Shareholders and Employees.
This annual report was prepared prior to Walt Disney’s passing.
The enthusiasm for the future you’ll find in these pages stemmed directly from Walt.
In this report are the fact that supported that enthusiasm. It should confirm for you that the substantial creative assets of Walt Disney Productions — Motion Picture Properties (completed and yet to be produced), real estate, Disneyland, Character Merchandising, Music, Publications and the world-famous Disney name — will result in a successful future.
It was Walt’s wish that — when the time came — he would have built an organization with the creative talents to carry on as he had established and directed it through the years. Today this organization has been built and we shall carry out this wish.
Walt Disney’s preparation for the future is a solid, creative foundation. All of the plans for the future that Walt had begun — new motion pictures, the expansion of Disneyland, and our Florida and Mineral King projects as outlined in this report — will continue to move ahead.
Signed Roy O Disney. President and Chairman of the Board. Walt Disney Productions
Walt Disney Productions Real Estate
What fascinates me about this letter is — when Roy is listing what he sees as the Company’s core assets in the wake of Walt’s passing … Well, the batting order he puts together:
- Motion Picture Properties
- Real Estate
- Disneyland
- Then Character Merchandising
Think about that.
Roy put the Company’s real estate holdings (Which — at that time — were mostly those 43 square miles of undeveloped swampland in Central Florida) ahead of Disneyland. That’s really telling about Walt’s brother’s head space in the immediate wake of Walt’s passing.
You have to remember that — at this point — Walt Disney Productions had spent roughly $5 million on the acquisition of that land. And then General Joe Potter — in order to get this land ready for construction (particularly that 2500 acre chunk right at the heart of this property which would eventually become the home of … Well, as the Company liked to describe Walt Disney World back in the late 1960s / early 1970s, “Florida’s Vacation Kingdom”).
Anyway … To get those 2500 acres of swampland & wetland ready for construction, General Joe had to first build 38 miles of water control channels. All of which Walt had asked Joe not to do as straight Panama Canal-like structures. But — rather — as picturesque winding canals that then blended in with the landscape.
This sort of work (as you might expect) was brutal, hot & expensive. And there were those with the Company (especially in the early part of 1967) who were wondering:
Should we really be spending this money ? I mean, Walt’s gone. Does it even make sense now that we push ahead with construction of this giant project in Florida? Not to mention a ski area up in the High Sierras?
For a time, the sheer momentum of Project Florida was enough to keep that enterprise moving forward. By that I mean, Joe Potter and all that earth-moving equipment were already down in Orange & Osceola County. And even if the Company were to eventually abandon Walt’s dream of building the Vacation Kingdom … Well, if they still wanted to get the full value out of Disney’s massive real estate holding in Central Florida, they’d first have to complete construction of a network of access roads throughout the work site. Likewise mitigate all of that property’s drainage problems. Which — again — brings us to the Reedy Creek Drainage District. The earliest iteration of the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
Florida Legislators and Project Florida
And now here are Florida’s legislators. Who are still anxiously awaiting those detailed plans for Project Florida. Which Disney is supposed to finally unveil in February of 1967 at a special presentation to Orange & Osceola County officials.
This is a scary, scary time for those folks. Especially when Roy O. briefly steps away from the day-to-day operations of Walt Disney Productions so that he can then mourn the loss of his brother. This period — surprise, surprise — directly coincided with the time between when Walt passed away in December of 1966 and that date in late February of 1967 when the Company was supposed to finally unveil its plans for Project Florida.
And this whole time, officials up in Tallahassee are working the phone, calling folks who are supposedly in the know when it comes to what’s going on in Anaheim & Burbank. As these elected officials try & get some information about what the current thinking inside the Mouse House might be.
Because — remember — Florida officials saw themselves as being in direct competition with the Mineral King project. The thinking back then is … Well, Walt’s gone. And — in the wake of his passing — there is just no way that the Company will now go forward with construction of both of these ambitious projects. People & corporations naturally get conservative at moments like this. Disney will eventually have to regroup. Retrench.
And when that happens … One of these two projects is going to wind up falling by the wayside. And given what Project Florida could mean to the future of Orange & Osceola County (All of those jobs. Not to mention turning a chunk of Central Florida — which, back then, was largely rural and made most of its money off of growing citrus & raising cattle — into a tourist destination that could potentially eventually rival the Sunshine State’s beaches) … Well, the stakes were just too high here. No matter what the costs, the folks up in Tallahassee just had to make sure that Project Florida ultimately went forward.
Mineral King or Project Florida?
That said, Florida’s elected officials were heartened when they learned that — in late December of 1966 — wilderness protection groups (chief among them the Sierra Club) were mounting a challenge to Mineral King. Their chief concern was that all-weather road which the Forest Service had told Disney officials that it was willing to build in order to grant access to this ski resort which would then have to pass through a grove of Sequoias that had grown up — over time — outside of the physical boundaries of Sequoia National Forest.
To Disney’s way of thinking, that was supposed to be one of the big draws for Mineral King. The natural beauty of California’s High Sierras. Little did they realize that this would also eventually become one of the main drawbacks of Mineral King. That naturalists & environmentalists would have a huge problem with the idea of this giant corporation facilitating the destruction of a grove of Sequoias / old growth forest just so a bunch of tourists could then drive up into the mountains for the day and go hiking or skiing.
And the folks in Florida were right. Inside of the halls of Walt Disney Productions (at least in the early, early part of 1967), the thinking was
“ … Why are we going ahead with this stupid ski area idea? Florida at least makes sense … Sort of. It’s just Disneyland writ large. We — as a company — already have a decade’s worth of experience when it comes to operating family fun parks. All we have to do in Orlando is replicate what we already have in Anaheim. And Boom! Profit.”
That said, there were folks within Disney who argued that
“ … we need to grow beyond just producing movies and operating theme parks. That’s what Walt wanted to, after all. For the Company to keep changing & growing.
And the Company does have experience operating sport-related operations. Look at the Celebrity Sports Center in Denver. We’ve been the sole operator of that 7-acre facility with its 80 bowling alleys and Olympic-sized swimming pool since 1962. And we’ve been making good money off of that place.
More to the point, we — as a Company — know nothing when it comes to building cities. That’s why we need to sell off all of that property in Central Florida. That Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow idea of Walt’s is an absolute recipe for disaster now that he’s gone. This is why we need to forget about Florida and concentrate all of our efforts in California.
Stick with the original Disneyland & our Studio in Burbank. And then build that ski area up in Mineral King.”
So picture this. You’re an elected official up in Tallahassee. And your staffers — who have been diligently working the phones — now come to you with these two distinctly different messages. Meaning that the folks at Disney themselves aren’t sure about whether they want to go forward with Project Florida OR Mineral King.
Say “Yes” – Disney’s Leverage on Florida Legislators
At this point, in order to get Walt Disney Productions to say “Yes” to proceeding with developing all of this property that the Company owned in Central Florida (and then creating all sorts of jobs for the residents of largely rural Orange & Osceola County), Florida officials have to literally create a glide path to Disney saying “Yes.” Remove virtually every impediment to the Company moving beyond building just those 38 miles of drainage canals.
Change the Reedy Creek Drainage District into a construction site where things then start going vertical. But to in order to make that happen … That would meaning relaxing a lot of Florida’s zoning regulations and building codes.
Mind you, Florida had done this before. Back in the early 1960s, when developer Del E. Webb expressed an interest in building an East Coast version of Sun City (that hugely popular retirement community that he’d established out in the Southern California desert near the tiny town of Menifee), Sunshine State officials bent over backwards to try and make Del’s dreams of a Sun City in Florida a reality.
In order to get Webb to build Sun City Center in Southern Hillsborough County (to the south of Tampa and the north of Sarasota) on nearly 16 square miles of swampland … Florida made all sort of concessions to that developer. Keeping this huge chunk of property unincorporated, for example.
That — in the end — was enough to convince Webb to purchase this 12,000 acre property in early 1961. Today, Sun City Center (an age restricted retirement community) is home to over 30,000 people.
That was the thinking up in Tallahassee. If we’re going to beat out that ski area up in the High Sierras, we’re going to have to do for Disney what we did for Del Webb. Give them whatever they want.
History of Reedy Creek Improvement District: Part 4
In our next & final chapter, we’ll talk about how the deal for the Reedy Creek Improvement District ultimately came together. And what’s going to happen now, now that the Florida legislature — under the guidance of Governor DeSantis — seems determined to sunset any special districts that were created in that state prior to 1968. What this all means to Walt Disney World as well as the residents of Sun City Center.
This article is based on research for The Disney Dish Podcast “Episode 371”, published on April 25, 2022. The Disney Dish Podcast is part of the Jim Hill Media Podcast Network.