On July 17, 1955, Disneyland Amusement Park in California, the first Disney park in history, opened. It originally consisted of five zones, which were called: Main Street, U.S.A., Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland.
The opening of the park was a first-class media event, which was even televised live on ABC. Media coverage was led by three friends of Walt Disney: Art Linkletter, Bob Cummings and Ronald Reagan (the future US president, who was 44 at the time and had not yet established himself more politically). The mentioned day was above average hot, even for the summer periods in California, so the temperature rose to 38 degrees Celsius.
As many as 28,000 people arrived at the opening, many of whom allegedly pushed through without tickets. The amusement park was originally located on 65 acres (650,000 square feet) of land that Walt Disney had bought a few years earlier in the small town of Anaheim, southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
Disneyland also owned a narrow-gauge railway from its inception, on which trains were pulled by locomotives powered by real steam engines (this was reportedly the result of a deep love for Walt Disney trains). The rails of this railway are a total of 1,931 meters long, and there are several railway stations along the line. Although several accidents occurred during the first day, the opening was in principle successful.
Disneyland has experienced great popularity, and since its opening to date, it has been visited by more than 650 million tourists. Due to the success of this concept, similar Disney parks were later opened in other locations around the world.
