After leaving Denver, I headed north for my final thematic destination on this 2017 summer road trip. Earlier I had stopped by Marceline, Missouri to investigate the roots of Disneyland’s Main Street USA. But as it turns out, right along my route was yet another town with perhaps even more legitimate design connections—Fort Collins.

Fort Collins is the fourth largest city in Colorado, about fifty miles north of Denver. Although it’s grown into a sprawling college town, home of Colorado State University, Fort Collins was founded as a U.S. Army outpost during the Civil War, and later became a bustling freight hub for the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads by the 1870s. My interest, however, is that Fort Collins is where Disney artist Harper Goff was born in 1911. Thus this post’s title is a pun on Harper Goff and Fort Collins as a tribute to one of my favorite publishers.

Goff went to school at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and went on to be a commercial illustrator in New York for a time but returned to Southern California to work as a set designer and art director at Warner Bros. After a chance encounter in a London shop in 1951, Walt Disney and Harper Goff bonded over their mutual love of model railroading, and not long after Walt hired him after he had left Warners for a time. Today Goff is still best remembered for designing Captain Nemo’s Nautilus submarine and its interiors for Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)—the famed look and feel of which is a foundational element of today’s steampunk aesthetic.

The Second Imagineer

Goff was one of the very first studio personnel whom Walt Disney handpicked to work on the Disneyland project. In 1951 Goff, along with others, developed concept art for Walt’s initial idea, a sixteen-acre park adjacent to the company property in Burbank. Before the final site in Anaheim had even been selected for what became Disneyland, Walt had him travelling around the country doing field research at amusement parks and fairs. Jeff Kurti in Walt Disney's Imagineering Legends and the Genesis of the Disney Theme Park (2008) called him “The Second Imagineer” after Walt Disney himself.

At Disneyland, Goff designed the interiors for the Golden Horseshoe saloon in Frontierland (which he cribbed directly from his work on 1953’s Calamity Jane for Warner Bros) and was the art director for the entire Adventureland area, including the detailed planning required for the Jungle Cruise attraction.

Unlike other Disney Legends who have tributes painted on the windows of Main Street USA, Goff’s window is above the Adventureland Bazaar. It advertises him offering banjo lessons as he played the instrument in the Firehouse Five Plus Two, a Dixieland jazz group which also featured fellow animator (and train enthusiast) Ward Kimball.

Collins Connection: Disneyland’s City Hall

Harper Goff’s other notable contribution to Disneyland’s design was his work on Main Street USA, in which he drew upon his childhood memories of Fort Collins. As Goff elaborated in an interview for the Winter 1992–1993 issue of The "E" Ticket magazine:

I was born in that little town…Fort Collins, Colorado. My dad owned a newspaper there, the Fort Collins Express Courier, and I grew up there. It was a very prosperous town. We had banks that looked like banks, you know, and there was a Victorian city hall. I was born in 1911 and these buildings were around when I was a kid. When I started working on Main Street, I had photographs of Fort Collins taken. I showed them to Walt and he liked them very much. Disneyland's City Hall was copied from Fort Collins…so was the Bank building and some of the others.

The structure in question which was the basis for Disneyland City Hall is, by all accounts, the Larimer County Courthouse. The large brick building was actually the third courthouse built (Fort Collins is currently on their fifth, dedicated in 2000). It opened in 1888 and was demolished in 1957 upon the inauguration of its replacement. There are several great photographs of the courthouse which you can view at the Fort Collins History Connection, an online collaboration between the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery and the Poudre River Public Library District.

I took the above photograph from a very low vantage to emphasize what Disneyland City Hall looks like to a small child; this is likely how Harper Goff remembered the Larimer County Courthouse in Fort Collins from his youth, towering over him.

Goff’s choice of words in the interview, “copied from Fort Collins,” is somewhat misleading, although I’m sure he probably meant it. Clearly there is some inspiration, but it’s pretty loose. For one thing, the courthouse is several order of magnitudes larger. And the materials are vastly different—the courthouse is nearly all red brick with a gray roof.

If Harper remembered anything from his childhood that he wished to bring to Disneyland, it was clearly the towering belvedere and cupola combination above the front entrance.

Though all of the design details on the Disneyland City Hall version are wildly different, that thing sure made an impression on young Harper. The width of the tower seems about right in proportion to the rest of the building, though the height and stature of the cupola has been reduced. The plot thickens, however. Disney historian Jim Korkis asserts that the designers actually referenced a photograph of the Bay County Courthouse in Bay City Michigan, but I have the book he mentions and I couldn’t find the relevant image inside. Have a look at that courthouse (built 1868) yourself and compare.

Collins Connection: Disneyland’s Firehouse

The Larimer County Courthouse is long since gone, but I used my afternoon in Fort Collins to explore what other design connections there might be.

The aforementioned Fort Collins History Connection maintains a page on “Old Town and Disneyland's Main Street USA” and they note how historian Richard V. Francaviglia visited the Fort Collins archives when he was conducting research for his book Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America (1996) which I have referenced before and consider a cherished source.

Goff was vague in his recollection of what other designs he borrowed from his Colorado upbringing—”the Bank building and some of the others”—so I decided to poke around the Old Town District and see for myself. As it turns out, there is another bell tower structure similar to the one Harper remembered from the Larimer County Courthouse still in Fort Collins today, at the town’s former firehouse.

Curiously, the footprint of the building is sort of a mirror image of what it used to be. This early 1900s photograph shows that there once a building to the left, and nothing to the right, of the original firehouse. Today this is reverse; the building has been added on at the right, and the lot to the left is vacant.

I went inside the building, which now is fittingly home to a wonderful independent bookstore, and inquired about any design connections to Disneyland. One of the older staff members mentioned that “this firehouse was inspiration for the one at Disneyland.” A customer in the store suggested that even the look of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at that park was linked the firehouse. Finally one other staff member said, no, but the firehouse’s tower design contributed to the City Hall at Disneyland (as noted above, inspired by the Larimer County Courthouse instead).

This is a common thing with local folklore, and gets repeated in the press from time to time. Even the Fort Collins Historical Society offered conflicting accounts when I stopped by and asked about Harper Goff and any Fort Collins connections to Disneyland. Because besides interviews with Goff himself, we don’t have much.

Here’s the Disneyland version, which doesn’t look anything like the firehouse in Fort Collins. Perhaps Harper Goff was simply interested in the rectangular orientation of the facades.

Looking closer, there is indeed a small tower on the left side of the building. Over the decades it’s been almost completely obscured by trees.

During the park’s early years, none of those trees existed. In this postcard view, you can clearly see the tower of the firehouse building.

All the features are much more accessible at Hong Kong Disneyland. Most of the Main Street USA area there is a near 1:1 copy of the original Disneyland park. In Hong Kong the trees have not fully grown in yet and the Jungle Cruise at that park does not sit directly behind the firehouse, so there is no dense foliage around the back of the building either.

The second Main Street USA firehouse at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom seems to have even greater Fort Collins lineage—both from the Larimer County Courthouse and the town’s former firehouse. The company is named Engine Co. 71 after the opening year of the Florida resort, 1971.

Just look at that tower! I was browsing through the Fort Collins History Connection database, and lo and behold, the roof feature at the top is practically identical to that of one Hottel House on 215 South College, which was built in the 1890s and demolished in 1962.

But by the time the Magic Kingdom was in full creative development, Harper Goff had moved on. During that time he returned to live action Hollywood, providing production design work for such films as Fantastic Voyage (1966), in which he managed to fuse the concept of a submarine with a Detroit automobile, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), where his steampunk visions of cast iron pipes and brass were turned fanciful. It was to be his final film credit. Goff later returned to work for Disney in the late 1970s as a conceptual consultant on the EPCOT project’s World Showcase and continued to do work for the company off and on until his death in 1993.

Disney artists such as Collin Campbell, Paul Hartley, and Dorothea Redmond are credited with the concept art for the Magic Kingdom’s Main Street USA. The approach to that park is larger, more elaborately Victorian, and more urban. It’s more Kansas City than Marceline or Fort Collins. The Magic Kingdom’s City Hall is easily twice the size or more of the Disneyland original, and adds a clock to its belvedere tower and cupola. It’s unclear how much these designers consulted with the original Disneyland concept renderings by Harper Goff and others, but I suspect with at least the Engine Co. 71 they did.

Collins Connection: Disneyland’s Bank Building

Goff specifically mentions “the bank” in his 1992 interview. And indeed, there appear to be many building blocks in the Old Town District of Fort Collins which look similar to the bank building on the east side of Main Street USA as you enter Town Square at Disneyland.

According to Bank of America, who hosted the location from 1955 until mid-1993, “located on Main Street stood a fully functioning Bank of America branch. Bank associates dressed in turn-of-the-century clothing and even offered money orders printed only for the Disneyland branch.” The bank was one of the very few in the United States during those years to be open on Sundays and holidays because the branch basically kept Disneyland’s hours. With the tellers departing in 1993 and the spread of ATMs, by 2001 the location was used for Annual Passport processing. Since 2009, it’s been the location of The Disney Gallery and its attached retail space.

In the park’s early years the building appears to have been more monochromatic and realistic; basically, more like the structures I found in Fort Collins.

All of the building facades along Disneyland’s Main Street USA have been extensively altered and retrofitted over the decades. Typically, paint color schemes have gotten more saturated, and decor more lavish. Main Street USA looks far more “theme park” than it did in the early years. But looking at older photos, I could definitely see the Fort Collins connection.

Yet that’s the thing. America’s actual historic districts and main streets and old towns look far more “theme park” today too. This was an essential point that Francaviglia was making in his investigation Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America—that the historic preservation and downtown revitalization movements that began in the 1970s and continue to today take their design cues from the public’s expectations for nostalgia. Which comes from theme parks, beginning with Disneyland.

Fort Collins even has a new Downtown Plan for their Old Town Historic District which the city adopted in the spring of 2017, amending and updating their original revitalization efforts which began in 1989. The District itself dates back to the late seventies.

Collins in Context

Harper Goff was certainly not the only one who was channeling childhood nostalgia while working on the Disneyland project. As Disney Imagineer David Mumford wrote in a 1992 letter to Jack and Leon Janzen, publishers of The “E” Ticket magazine, many designers worked on Main Street USA:

It seems little has been documented on the design development of Main Street at Disneyland…it is difficult to attribute Main Street’s design to just one person…Main Street is actually a typical representation of a Walt Disney Imagineering project, since it represents a collaborative effort by many creative people.

Mumford mentions Dick Irvine, Marvin Davis, Wade Rubottom, Harry McAfee, Harvey Gillette, and Sam McKim as having worked on designs with the participation Walt Disney. Also of note:

These men were assisted by Harry Webster, who seemed to have a natural ability for drawing American Gothic and Victorian details. Harry went on to work with Randall Duell on Six Flag Theme Parks, but was “borrowed back” by WED to design the France pavilion for World Showcase at EPCOT Center.

Mumford also confirms Goff’s story about Fort Collins, and repeats the matter of City Hall:

An effort has been made to find some of the reference material used to inspire each of the Main Street buildings. For example, Main Street’s City Hall is based on a building in Harper Goff’s home town of Fort Collins, Colorado.

But he also notes that many other disparate childhood memories of Americana were likely at play:

Imagineering legend Sam McKim recalls how the designs relied on a vintage book of photographs of turn-of-the-century Sonoma, California. But in tracking down this book from the studio library, I have found no direct references to Disneyland’s Main Street buildings. Perhaps like Walt, all the gentlemen working on the project had some Main Street roots from their home town that they brought to the design.

So although I did find elements here and there around Fort Collins that influenced Harper Goff’s concept renderings for Main Street USA besides the City Hall, FIre Department, and Bank of Main Street building, I have to consider all the other memories of the other designers (and any photo reference they may have used) as part of the mix. Main Street is a melange; saying it’s based only on Walt’s childhood in Marceline and Goff’s days in Fort Collins makes for nice promotional copy, but it’s a shortcut to the truth.

Yet given that, I found several general turn-of-the-century Victorian architectural threads here in Fort Collins which connect to Main Street USA. And that’s probably because while Walt was channeling the “small town-ness” of his boyhood in Missouri, the more interesting designs to ape off are in larger, more prosperous, much more locally influential towns like Fort Collins.

The kind folks at the Fort Collins Historical Society really urged me to check out the former Linden Hotel which began as the Poudre Valley Bank in 1882. This is one of the few buildings in Old Town which commanded the ‘corner presence’ often found at the Main Streets of the Disney parks. The upper floors were private offices when I visited but are to be converted into four luxury apartments as part of the city’s new Downtown Plan.

The stonework and brownstoning in the Old Town District were quite impressive, and also far more Western in orientation than the Mid Western structures of Marceline. Fort Collins felt like Denver, like Flagstaff, like Salt Lake City, like Billings.

As part of the efforts begun in 1989, a single block of Linden Street between Walnut Street and East Mountain Avenue was at some point closed to automobile traffic and converted into a pedestrian promenade.

The trim here in the upper right feels like what Disney’s people were going for when designing Main Street USA. And again, these features are not so much specific to Fort Collins and Harper Goff’s memories of it, but rather typical of towns more prosperous and populous than Marceline at the turn of the century.

The Miller Block dates back to 1888 (as proudly proclaimed by the sign, which may or may not be original), and I got some pretty strong Disneyland vibes off of it, especially the details along the roofline.

Like so many other buildings in the Old Town District, the Miller Block carries colorful trims which are less period accurate and more Disney-esque authentic.

The labeling and dating of the various blocks can be problematic. Some are actually over 100 years old, while others have been added as part of “restoration” efforts.

Perhaps the lettering here is authentic and has simply been repainted over the years; it’s just impossible to tell from the street. On Disney’s Main Street USA there is no such labeling, but one thing that thematic design leverages often to establish feelings of place and community are faux proprietorships. I’ve seen this at plenty other theme parks as well.

Neither Marceline Nor Fort Collins

After visiting both towns, I’ve come to realize that neither can really be dusted for fingerprints with regards to the design of Disneyland’s Main Street USA. There are echoes and ghosts and approximations, for sure. But no true one-to-one comparisons to be made (unless we count the roof feature from the Hottel House which somehow ended up on Engine Co. 71 at the Magic Kingdom). The Larimer County Courthouse / Disneyland City Hall is the most frequently cited, but even that is something of a stretch.

For one, the Disney model includes many more architectural aspects of domesticity. At both Marceline and Fort Collins, all the blocks are part of a twentieth century “urban core” consisting of banks, hotels, various businesses, and perhaps a couple restaurants or a saloon or two. At the Disney parks, bits of “houses” crop up in between and around the other facades, reinforcing a communal sense of “town-ness.”

All of Main Street’s architectural residents are much leaner as well. In Marceline the blocks were subdivided into maybe four or five side by side structures; in Fort Collins many of the blocks were a single building long. On Disney’s Main Street USA, so many are like the building above—wide enough only for a single proprietor and storefront entrance.

And the roof treatments! These appear to be flights of fancy; none to be found in either Walt or Harper’s Missouri and Colorado memories. As I mentioned earlier when looking at the Miller Block, a notable exception is the wrought iron railings on that building and others currently standing in Fort Collins which clearly served as inspiration for all the similar iron work on Main Street USA. There are no such features in Marceline, Missouri.

As for the use of awnings on nearly every window, it’s possible this was more common in both towns at the turn of the century, given the lack of electric fans or air conditioning. But awnings on the upper floors in Marceline and Fort Collins today are largely a thing of the past.

Much is made of the corner-facing structures at the end of each block on Main Street USA. The primary walk between the train station and the castle hub, which runs south to north, is bisected at the midpoint by the narrower Center Street. Thus there is an East and West Center street, and all the corners of each are given a commanding presence. Conversely, there are only a couple moments of “corner-ness” in Marceline and Fort Collins (notably the former Linden Hotel at the latter).

I have no idea where the design of the Disneyland Opera House came from; some sources say Sam McKim, others Marvin Davis, still others Dale Hennesy. But there’s certainly nothing like it in Marceline or Fort Collins. It should be noted that Harper Goff’s earliest concept drawings for the Town Square end of Main Street USA were more frontier and Old West rustic, as opposed to Victorian Gingerbread.

Documenting both the Marceline of Walt Disney’s youth and the Fort Collins of Harper Goff’s gave me more insight into how Disneyland’s Main Street USA model wasn’t designed rather than how it was. It’s part of company lore at this point, and both towns like to play up the connection to drive tourism (although I’d argue that Fort Collins could do even more on the ground, so to speak). But it’s mostly mythology.

At Fort Collins, the most direct link is of course that oft-mentioned Larimer County Courthouse, which has long since been demolished. And there are hints at the firehouse for sure that wound up in the DNA of both the Main Street USA areas at Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. But as someone cataloging visual evidence would say, it’s all anecdotal in the details, and largely apocryphal in the bigger picture.

Finally Finished

This concludes the documentation of my five weeks of travel during the summer months of 2017. Between processing my photographs, designing custom graphics and maps, and (of course) the writing, it certainly took way longer than I expected. But I’m glad I got it all down in proper order.

Going forward I have a few notes from 2018 and then I’ll begin posts on this blog detailing site documentation from my three weeks of travel during the summer of 2019.

Onward.