Saturday, June 06, 2009

Opening Day Snapshots- Part 1

I was lucky enough to purchase items from Calista Wehrli many years ago. She was an early Disneyland employee who worked for the lessee Sunny View Farms. One of the items I purchased was a group of snapshots from opening day. Now, I present for your enjoyment, part 1 of the snapshots.

The first image is of the newsstand at the front gate. Written on the reverse is train and entrance. It also appears the special opening day supplement was in the paper as it looks like it is displayed on the middle board. (I believe this is where the last souvenir stand before you exit is now located.)

The next image is of Bobby Burns in news boy outfit. From what I can gather from a couple of other photographs, Bobby is the son of the Manager of the store.

Next up is a shot of the store. Written on the reverse is Our Store!

The final image for today is of Bob Cummings.

8 comments:

  1. Patrick - these are incredible - especially the one of Cummings. Can't wait to see the rest!

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  2. Oh my! These are spectacular! The Bob Cummings one is super, love the trash at the curb! I've never even heard of Sunny View Farms, some Disneyland fan I am! Can't wait to see more, thanks!

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  3. SundayNight9:23 AM

    These are fantastic. Looks like a lot of pre-opening photography going on. In the first photo there’s a guy taking a pic of some people in the train. And in that second photo there is a reflector in the street. Perhaps the shapely lady and the little girl with the teddy bear were models for the photo.

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  4. Awesome, just awesome. Thank you.

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  5. Absolutely fantastic pictures. True Disneyland history. I love the impromptu newspaper stand. Awesome!

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  6. These sound like very interesting photos! If you're not aware, this is from the April 1957 Disneylander:

    "Don [Wehrli] brought his family to Santa Ana from Naperville, Illinois in May of 1955 to accept the position of Manager of Sunny View Farms store."

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  7. This pictures are much too interesting. How many opening day candid shots are there at large? You'd think there'd be more for the number of cameras you see in the crowd, yet I think this is the first group of private 1st day photos I've seen.

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  8. I missed these yesterday (was on the road), fantastic stuff!

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