Frontierland (Disneyland)
Frontierland is one of the five original lands of Disneyland Park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, opened with the park on July 17, 1955. It presents the American frontier of the nineteenth century — the era of pioneers, riverboats, stagecoaches and gold rushes — along the banks of the Rivers of America, the park's artificial river. The land is entered from the Central Plaza through a stockade gate of ponderosa pine logs, and extends north past New Orleans Square toward Big Thunder Mountain. Walt Disney, whose television series had recently made Davy Crockett a national phenomenon, introduced the land at the dedication as the place where guests could relive the story of America's past.
History
Frontierland in 1955 was deliberately open country rather than a built-up street. Its early attractions were modes of travel as much as rides: guests could cross the land by stagecoach, Conestoga wagon or pack mule, or walk its trails. The Mark Twain Riverboat, a stern-wheel steamboat built at five-eighths scale, began circling the Rivers of America on opening day — it had in fact taken its first voyage four days earlier, on July 13, 1955, carrying guests at Walt and Lillian Disney's thirtieth wedding anniversary party at the Golden Horseshoe Saloon. The Sailing Ship Columbia, a full-scale replica of the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe, joined the river in 1958, and Tom Sawyer Island opened in the river's centre in 1956.
The pack trails gave way in 1960 to the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland, a slow train ride past desert scenery and animated wildlife in the land's northwest corner. That area's Rainbow Ridge mining town was retained when the mine train closed in 1977 and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a runaway mine train roller coaster built among red rock formations modelled on the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon in Utah, opened on its site in 1979. Big Thunder closed for an extensive rebuild in 2013 and reopened in March 2014 with new track and trains and added effects in its final lift.
The Rivers of America were shortened at their northern end in 2016–2017 to make room for the construction of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge beyond them; the river reopened in 2017 with new scenery along its banks, and the island — restyled as Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island since 2007 — returned with it.
Attractions
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is the land's principal thrill ride, its trains racing through a flooded, earthquake-shaken gold mine. The two river vessels, the Mark Twain Riverboat and the Sailing Ship Columbia, depart from a dock in the land and pass the island, the wooded banks of the river and the waterfront of New Orleans Square; the Columbia also serves as a stage setting, and below decks holds a small maritime museum. Rafts carry guests to Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island, an exploration area of caves, bridges and a fort drawn from Mark Twain's novels.
The Frontierland Shootin' Exposition preserves the shooting gallery, a fixture of the land since 1957 in various forms. At night the land's riverfront becomes one of the main viewing areas for the nighttime spectacular Fantasmic!, first staged on the river in 1992.
Dining and entertainment
The Golden Horseshoe Saloon has presented stage entertainment since 1955; its original production, the Golden Horseshoe Revue, ran for more than three decades and some 39,000 performances. The building also hosted the Disneys' anniversary party before the park opened. The River Belle Terrace overlooks the river at the land's southern end, and Rancho del Zocalo serves Mexican food near Big Thunder Mountain. Near the Golden Horseshoe stands a petrified tree stump, a gift from Walt Disney to his wife Lillian, placed in the park in 1957.