The Rumor That Ran the Mill, pt. 4
The front-page stunner that changed Florida forever
First and foremost, I want to extend my thoughts to those impacted by Hurricane Milton in Florida. If you’re able to, please consider financially supporting organizations that are assisting with recovery efforts. All paid subscriptions through October will be donated to Best Friends Animal Society, but here’s a few more organizations to consider: World Central Kitchen, Direct Relief, and Mutual Aid Disaster Relief.
If you haven’t read the first three installments of this series, be sure to give them a read for a lil’ dose of context as to how we got to this point in the story of the Walt Disney World Resort. I’m a bit biased, but it’s some good stuff!
So, what happened next?
Alright, so…Central Florida is talking. A lot. By mid-October, we’ve got newspaper columns and front-page spreads (among other things) flying left and right speculating that the mystery buyer of the thousands of acres of property around Orlando and Kissimmee is, in fact, Walt Disney. Things are heating up, and it’s all thanks to this sleuthing reporter, Emily Bavar:
The, “he wasn’t a very good liar,” gets me every time.
What followed shortly afterwards is the stuff of history books. Disney history books, but history books nonetheless. Let’s dive in!
If you’d like to read or save any of the newspaper columns featured below in their full-page format, you can access them here!
The cat’s out of the bag
On Saturday, October 23rd, 1965, Bob Foster, Disney’s property wrangler, made a trip to Orlando with General William “Joe” Potter, an Army general who worked alongside Robert Moses on the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair and was later hired by Walt to spearhead the development of the Florida project. Using fake names to ensure anonymity, the pair toured a property on foot and from the air. Later that evening, they returned to their respective hotels to prepare for the next day.
Things were business as usual until, on the next day, General Potter made his way to the lobby of the Robert Meyer Motor Inn1 only to find an Orlando Sentinel headline that stopped him in his tracks: “We Say: ‘Mystery’ Industry Is Disney.”
By this point, it really wasn’t a surprise that someone was able to solve the mystery that had been puzzling Floridians for several months. The most important thing for Disney, however, was to continue anonymity until Walt was ready to formally announce his plans for Central Florida.
After seeing the headline, Potter used a payphone to break the news of the leak to Card Walker, who was in California with the rest of the team. Not too long after that, Florida Governor Hayden Burns contacted Disney and demanded that if the company indeed had plans to set up shop in Florida, he needed to know. Like, yesterday. Knowing full well that the campaign for secrecy was no more, Walt began getting things in order to introduce the world to Project Future.
Governor Burns takes the stage
Back on the East Coast, Foster and General Potter immediately hopped on a plane to Miami to meet and brief Governor Burns and his advisors on the Florida project. Disney officials were aware that he would be addressing the Florida League of Municipalities Convention the following day and, in a clever political move, gave him the honor of unveiling the company’s plans to those in attendance.
On Monday, October 25th, 1965, Governor Burns announced to thunderous applause that Walt Disney Productions would be coming to the Sunshine State.
Once the project finally went public, many things changed. For starters, Disney officials no longer had to walk on eggshells to protect anonymity. They ditched the strategic tactics, pseudonyms, and code names. They could fly into the same airport and dine at the same restaurant. No more postcards or wonky travel itineraries! Hallelujah, I’m sure.
Additionally, the company was now in a position to facilitate and leverage conversations pertaining to government assistance and how it could help bring Project Future to life. Disney officials knew from prior experience (i.e. Disneyland, the New York World’s Fair, etc.) that their ideas would bring substantial benefits to Florida and now, their largest hurdle would be convincing state leaders that it was well worth their cooperation and investment.
One of the earliest examples of this involved demonstrating the inadequacy of Florida’s existing regulations, specifically building codes, and how they complicated Disney’s unique approach to project design and execution.
In December 1965, state Comptroller Fred “Bud” Dickinson and ten other Florida officials arrived at Disney’s California headquarters to spend three days learning about the many intricacies of Disneyland’s daily operations.2 The goal of the trip was to bring awareness to the deficiencies of existing Florida regulations and, hopefully, enable the company to adopt a stricter building and design code to ensure guest safety while also allowing for greater creative freedom to prioritize innovation.
Upon returning to Florida, Dickinson made it known that he was “very impressed with the spirit of cooperation between our state government and the Walt Disney executives and technicians.” Sounds like it worked, eh?
But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. Governor Burns’ announcement might’ve generated a whole lot of buzz, but it didn’t really give anyone anything substantial — details, timelines, dollar amounts, etc. — to hold on to. All of that would come in a few short weeks, though, at an official press conference hosted by Disney officials and Governor Burns in Orlando, which is where we’ll pick up and finalize this saga.
Whew — from property evaluations to little rumblings to front-page exposés, we’ve been on quite the journey, haven’t we? I hope I’m not dragging it out too much, but the last thing I want to do is bog you down with names, places, and events. It’s Disney history after all, and there’s quite a bit to ingest!
With that said, the next and final installment to this series will land in inboxes on Wednesday, November 13th, so be sure to subscribe if you’d like to be amongst the first to read it. As always, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it more than you know!
See ya real soon,
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There were three hotels that Disney executives frequented the most during their visits to Central Florida: The Cherry Plaza Hotel, Robert Meyer Motor Inn, and Hilton Inn South.
Broadly speaking, a comptroller manages an entity's financial reporting, tax records, and accounting tasks.