The Main Street Monthly Preview Issue - August 2015 | Page 12

Disney 101

The History of the Haunted Mansion
by Scott Atwood

“When hinges creak in doorless chambers, and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls.
Whenever candlelights flicker where the air is deathly still. That is the time when ghosts are present, practicing
their terror with ghoulish delight!”

Photo above from http://www.doombuggies.com/ shows construction on Disneyland and Magic Kingdom Haunted Mansions

The Haunted Mansion is one of Disney’s most popular attractions, but when first thought of was nothing like it is
today. Let’s take a look and talk about some of the things in the mansion and how certain parts came to be.
The actual thoughts for the haunted house walk through attraction were around even before Disneyland. The idea
came when Walt Disney hired his first of his Imagineers. The illustrations for what Disneyland would become
showed a Main Street, green fields, a western themed area and a carnival. It was Harper Goff, a Disney Legend,
who added a black and white sketch of an area that lead down a crooked street away from the main areas to a
peaceful church and graveyard. In the distance was a run-down manor perched high above everything looking
down on the other areas. This was the first idea of the Haunted Mansion.

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