Walt Disney was born in 1901, but our story actually begins a few years earlier.
The year is 1893. The place, Chicago. The City is frantically preparing to open up the World Fair of 1893, the World Columbian Exposition. The City fathers, and a team of America’s greatest architects, were determined to put together a fair the likes of which the world have never seen—the greatest World Fair of all times—not merely a set of exhibits, but an entire city constructed specially for the occasion. It would be a city of enormous, innovative buildings, some of the largest the world had ever seen, and a marvel of engineering that would become known as the Ferris Wheel after the engineer who designed it, all set amongst beautifully landscaped grounds, canals, and lagoons, upon the banks of the Great Lake Michigan. The White City, as it became called because of the white stucco applied to the buildings, would become world famous, introducing people not only to the latest in cutting edge innovations, like moving walkways, the electric car, and the automated washing machine, but to a new vision of what a city could be. In a time where cities were filthy, disgusting, disorganized places, the White City, with its electric boats, clean water, and spotless grounds–all laid out with an organized, artistic purpose–was like stepping into another world. Fairgoers described it as a magical kingdom, a dream made reality, gleaming in electric lights.
Tens of Thousands of men were employed in constructing and maintaining the fair. Among them was a carpenter by the name of Elias Disney. For many years after he would tell his children, including his youngest of four boys, Walt, about the magical city he’d helped to build. You can picture young Walt, as a child, listening to the stories of the White City, and wishing he could see it for himself.
Perhaps, I’d like to think, one fine evening after hearing his daddy’s stories, young Walt walked to a nearby window and happened to spot a shooting star. Perhaps he made a wish upon that star, that someday he would see a place like that with his own eyes.
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For more, listen to the Podcast episode and check out my book, History Stories for Everyone, where I dive deeper into this and some of history’s other most fascinating and relatable human stories:
