Walt Disney World History 101 – “How to buy 27,000 acres of land and have no one notice”
by Lou Mongello 2.11.05 from WDWRadio.com: https://www.wdwradio.com/2005/02/wdw-history-101-how-to-buy-27000-acres-of-land-and-no-one-noticeq/ From the Oct. 18, 1971, issue of TIME Magazine Actually, most people don’t realize how much land Walt Disney World actually encompasses. In fact, it’s about about 80 times the size of the entire nation of Monaco, twice the size of Manhattan, and the same size as San Francisco, California! So when you say Walt Disney World is huge, you ain’t kidding! The Walt Disney World Resort is made up of 47 square miles of land…. or about 30,000 acres. Only about 1100 acres of that land is devoted to the 4 theme parks. In fact, with only 7,100 acres developed, there’s quite a lot of room for expansion! But how (and why) did Disney buy up all that land? Back in the early 1950s, Anaheim, the home of Disneyland , was a quiet little town, surrounded by nothing more than acres and acres of orange groves. Originally, Walt Disney wanted his new, 8-acre theme pa