Did Walt Disney Almost Build His Second Theme Park in the Smokies?

How close did the Southern Appalachian Mountains come to hosting the park that would become Disney World?

A couple of years ago, we had a little fun on April Fool’s Day. I wrote a story about Disney buying the former Ghost Town in Maggie Valley with the intent of reopening it. It featured all the defunct rides that “super” fans on the internet are always complaining about. It was fun and funny (I hope). We laid it on thick but by the end, it was clear that it was a joke.

I had no idea at the time, that I’d hit a little closer to home than I’d expected. Friends, it turns out the truth really might be stranger than fiction.

Did Walt Disney consider building a new theme park in the Smokies?

No. Not really. It would have been impossible for him to get the necessary land in the Smokies due to the National Park. But, according to multiple sources, he did seriously consider buying a financially struggling railway in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North Georgia. And, according to one writer, he gave serious consideration to building a park in North Georgia.

In 1954, Walt and his wife Lillian stayed at the Buckhorn Inn in Gatlinburg for about a month. He and his team were preparing to film the Davy Crockett television series. The show would later be edited into two movies and start a national craze.

According to the website, The Americas Revealed, Disney would land in Atlanta and travel on the Tallulah Falls Railroad up to Franklin, North Carolina. He used a rental car to get various filming locations for the Crockett series. This is corroborated by multiple sources, including the Walt Disney Family Museum. The museum mentions the impact Disney made on the small mountain towns during his visits for his subsequent movie, “The Great Locomotive Chase.”

“Walt himself spent several weeks on set and was a fixture in the small towns along the route. To this day, local businesses showcase framed pictures of Walt on location, or dining in their establishments,” the museum said.

A possible park in the mountains?

Multiple sources confirm that Disney was aware of financial difficulties related to the railroad – which was used in the filming of the “The Great Locomotive Chase,” a 1956 film starring Fess Parker – who also played Crockett. The movie was a tale of a daring group of Union soldiers attempting to steal a Confederate train.

Did Disney – with his famous love of trains – endeavor to buy the railway? According to the Walt Disney Family Museum, he considered buying the line to turn it into a scenic railway, but he “was dissuaded by its millions of dollars of accumulated debt and back taxes.”

Was he considering a second park in the area?

There is not enough evidence available for us to say yes. At least, probably not in the traditional sense of what a theme park is today. The speculation that we have seen is that Disney would have built a series of attractions along the rail line that would have possibly featured hotels and maybe restaurants.

Would there have been attractions? There’s not enough evidence to say. Remember, this is 1956 and Disneyland had only opened in 1955. Did Disney already have enough vision to plan a second, more ambitious “theme park” spread across more than 20 miles of Appalachian Mountain small towns? It seems unlikely.

Per the Disney World Wiki page – which cites the Richard Fogelsong Book “Married to the Mouse” – it was 1959 when the Disney machine began earnestly looking for a location for a second park in the East. They were driven by the fact that only 5% of Disneyland visitors came from East of the Mississippi. Disney was famously frustrated by the businesses that had sprung up around Disneyland. He wanted a place where he could get more land and “protect” his new park.

Walt eventually settled on Central Florida and began a campaign to secretly buy up land. Is it possible he considered other locations? Yes, of course. In fact, there is reporting that in 1963 Walt gave serious consideration to land in St. Louis, Missouri for an indoor theme park.  However, it never got off the ground.

Would you have wanted a Disney themed park in the area? Let us know in the comments!