In the 1960s, St. Louis nearly became one of the most magical places on Earth. A planned Disneyland called the Riverfront Square captured imaginations as local leaders negotiated with Walt Disney himself — until the deal fell apart in 1965.
Some of the planned rides eventually became popular features of Disney theme parks and movies, including Pirates of the Caribbean. The original blueprints for Riverfront Square, which emerged in 2015 when they went up for auction, show what might have been.
Rather than a copy of the sprawling, Disney-themed city that opened in Anaheim in 1955, the proposed Riverfront Square Disneyland would have contained multiple attractions within a single structure.
“This was really only going to be one gigantic building with a bunch of layers,” said Devin Thomas O’Shea, a St. Louis writer who recently revisited the legacy of the Riverfront Square in an essay for the History News Network.
The plans included a “Meramec Cavern” and steamboats, with visitors traversing the different floors on zigzagging paths meant to evoke the Mississippi. “You'd be sort of going up and down the river, up and down the stairs,” O’Shea said.
On St. Louis on the Air, O’Shea shared his insights into Walt Disney’s Missouri roots and efforts to mythologize American historical figures like Davy Crockett and Mike Fink. O’Shea also discussed the disputed reasons behind the project’s failure and why newspapers at the time blamed a supposed clash between Walt Disney and Anheuser-Busch CEO August Busch Jr.
See architect sketches for the park that could have been below:
To learn more about how St. Louis nearly landed Disneyland, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcast or Spotify or by clicking the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Roshae Hemmings is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to talk@stlpr.org.
