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Last week, I wrote about Real Places that Inspired Liberty Square at the Magic Kingdom. Other parts Magic Kingdom Park also owe their authnticity to the real places that inspired them.
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2019 Magic Kingdom: Main Street Station |
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Delaware & Hudson Collection, New York State Library Inspiration: 1871 Delaware & Hudson Railroad Station, Saratoga Springs, New York |
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Two Victorian-style railroad stations opened one hundred years apart. In 1871, the Delaware & Hudson Railroad opened a station with in Saratoga Springs, New York, replacing an older station. In 1971, Walt Disney Productions opened a similar station at the entrance to the new Magic Kingdom. Each had a prominent central clock tower, four smaller corner towers, and mansard roofs. The similarity was not a coincidence. When Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa opened in 2004, the company explained that it wasn’t the first time that Disney had looked to Saratoga Springs. The Imagineers had modeled Main Street Station after a station in the historic city of “health, history, and horses.” But don’t try to visit the 1871 station. It burned down in 1899. Architectural tastes had changed, so the replacement built in 1900 looked completely different. The current Amtrak station in Saratoga Springs, which looks nothing like the three earlier stations, opened in a different location in 1956 and was substantially updated in 2004. |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2012 Magic Kingdom: City Hall, Main Street, U.S.A. |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2025 Inspiration: Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
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City Hall on Town Square at Main Street, U.S.A. uses architectural features from Philadelphia City Hall on Penn Square in Philadelphia. Both city halls are designed in the Second Empire style. Both have mansard roofs, with similar corners. Both have a tower with an elongated, eight-sided dome, slats on the dome, porthole windows above the dome, and twin columns on each side of the clock. There are many differences. Taking 30 years to construct (1871 to 1901), Philadelphia City Hall is huge. In fact, it’s the largest municipal building in the United States. In Philadelphia, the tower is topped by a statue of William Penn. At the park, there’s a flagpole flying a Magic Kingdom banner. The Disney version is not trying to be a replica. It’s just meant to look authentic, within the context of the “Eastern Seaboard Vernacular” style of the Magic Kingdom’s Main Street, U.S.A. The Imagineeers also included architectural features not found in Philadelphia. |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2013 Magic Kingdom: Under The Sea – Journey of the Little Mermaid in Fantasyland |
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Frame capture from The Little Mermaid (1989) © Disney Inspiration: Prince Eric’s castle in the animated feature The Little Mermaid |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2026 Inspiration: Chillon Castle (Château de Chillon), Montreux, Switzerland |
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The entrance to Under The Sea - Journey of the Little Mermaid is a simplified version of Prince Eric’s castle from the animated feature The Little Mermaid (1989). The film’s castle was inspired on Chillon Castle (Château de Chillon) in Montreux, Switzerland. Chillon Castle juts out into freshwater Lake Geneva on a small island just offshore. Prince Eric’s palace dramatically juts into a saltwater sea. Although Hans Christian Andersen, the author of The Little Mermaid was Danish, Disney’s artists chose a Mediterranean look for the castle. |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2011 Magic Kingdom: Crystal Palace at the transition from Main Street, U.S.A. to Adventureland |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2018 One Inspiration: San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco |
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Photo by Mike Peel, 2024 under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 One Inspiration: Palm House at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, England |
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Drawing from the architectural firm of Gildemeister and Carstensen, 1853, public domain Crystal Palace, New York City, New York |
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According to the The Imagineering Field Guide to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, Crystal Palace is based on the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, Kew Gardens in England, and the Crystal Palace in New York. San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, the oldest public wood-and-glass conservatory in North America, was built in 1878. It still operates as a botanical greenhouse and tourist attraction. The Palm House at Kew Gardens is a UNESCO World Heritage-listed Victorian glasshouse. Built between 1844 and 1848, it was the world’s first large-scale structure utilizing wrought iron and glass. It’s still in use as a greenhouse and tourist attraction. The Crystal Palace in New York was an exhibition building at the 1853 Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, considered America’s first World’s Fair. It was inspired by the Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park at the Great Exhibition of 1851. New York’s Crystal Palace was destroyed by fire in 1858. Crystal Palace at the Magic Kingdom is a restaurant, not an exhibition hall or greenhouse. |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2005 Magic Kingdom: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Frontierland |
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Photo by Jeff Hollett, under Public Domain Inspiration: Monument Valley, Arizona |
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Photo by Domenico Convertini, 2015 (CC BY 2.0) (modified) Inspiration: Monument Valley, Arizona |
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Disneyland’s version of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was inspired by Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. For the Magic Kingdom version, the Imagineers looked to Monument Valley, the dramatic desert landscape of towering, crimson-red sandstone buttes and spires straddling the Arizona-Utah border. |
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© 2026 Werner Weiss — Disclaimers, Copyright, and Trademarks Updated August 21, 2026 |
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, Curator of Yesterland, August 21, 2026
