Saturday, April 16, 2011

Miscelaneous Pictures

Haven't posted in a while. Been real busy on some special projects which I hope to share with you all real soon. Some good stuff coming up, I can guarantee you that!

These are a couple of small pictures cut out of Hotel brochures.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

1957 New Car at the Disneyland Hotel





Here are some pictures of Jack & Bonita Wrather at the Disneyland Hotel with their brand-new 1957 Cadillac El Dorado.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Overheads

How about some overheads from various years?

February, 1963


August, 1966

September, 1968

October, 1972

August, 1975

January, 1982

Monday, February 21, 2011

Random Pictures

The brand-new Anaheim Convention Center 1967
The Spruce Goose & Queen Mary

Disneyland with the Disneyland Hotel in the foreground


A view of the Disneyland Hotel from the parking lot at Disneyland. Seems strange but, I miss that parking lot.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

New Pics From the Vault Find


This one is cool because it has the LA Airways helicoptor flying over. This was taken just after this Tower opened for business in 1962.
This one is of particular interest. Notice the blue Monorail train. The postcard from almost the same view has a red Monorail train.

Hope you all like these.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Having Fun

Time and again I hear from the Wrather family that Jack and Bonita loved having fun especially in their various business ventures. The pictures below I think show just how fun it would have been to be an employee or a friend of Jack and Bonita Wrather. These were brochures they had printed documenting a road trip to help welcome their friends and business partners from New York City. John Loeb was in the investment firm of Carl M. Loeb, Rhoades & Company who were partners in numerous Wrather Company entities.

Now wouldn't this have been a fun trip?

For vintage Disneyland Hotel images, please visit: http://www.magicalhotel.printroom.com/


Our website for the definitive book on the history of the Disneyland Hotel is http://www.magicalhotel.com/

Thursday, December 30, 2010

A Tale of Two Tents

I think I know what the tent is at Disneyland in the top photo. I have no idea what this tent was used for at the Disneyland Hotel in the bottom photo.

Anyway, I love aerial photos. It seems you always learn something new from them. In this case, I learned a tent was erected at the Disneyland Hotel in May of 1960. I will now have to find out what it was used for.

By the way, I have added 600 pictures to my Disneyland Hotel collection all of which are simply amazing. I would bet the majority have not been seen in as much as 50 years or maybe more. The two above being part of the 600.

For vintage Disneyland Hotel images, please visit: http://www.magicalhotel.printroom.com/


Our website for the definitive book on the history of the Disneyland Hotel is http://www.magicalhotel.com/

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

1956 Overheads

These aerial view pictures were all taken in 1956 and show the Disneyland Hotel surrounded by citrus groves. I had never seen these before. The first four with very similar views are from February 16, 1956. Additional buildings located on S. West Street (center) intended to house services for Hotel guests were under construction. The 7 month old Disneyland is visible in the background.


The next photograph is from November 2, 1956.

This photo shows all of Disneyland and just a bit of the Hotel at the left bottom. The caption reads: Aerial view of Disneyland amusement park located at 1313 S. Harbor Boulevard as well as surrounding neighborhoods in Anaheim; view is looking northeast. The Santa Ana Freeway (I-5) and Harbor Boulevard can be seen beyond the park (horizontally, upper middle) and numerous orange orchards are scattered throughout.

For vintage Disneyland Hotel images, please visit: http://www.magicalhotel.printroom.com/


Our website for the definitive book on the history of the Disneyland Hotel is http://www.magicalhotel.com/

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Please Help Date this Photo

Can anybody help to date this overhead picture? Please provide evidence to support your year.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Update on Garden Rooms....Dateline September 10, 1958

I just started reading over some of the documents from a pile of roughly 1000 documents I scanned from the Wrather archives. The date of the letter is September 10, 1958 and it is addressed to a bank which helped Jack Wrather many times through the years with the financing of the Disneyland Hotel. The letter states, "we have just started a building with 36 additional units, making a total for the Hotel of 236." This building , the ninth of eleven Garden type structures would actually have 34 rooms making the total 234 rooms at the Disneyland Hotel. I know the building was operational by July 4th, 1959 from an overhead picture I have but I have no information on when it actually first opened. It all depends on how long it took to build this single structure. I do know that the litigation between Wrather and Alvarez is what prevented building further additions to the Hotel between 1956 and 1958. On August 8, 1958 the litigation's ended and Jack Wrather bought out Helen Alvarez from all of their joint holdings which included a 50% share in  the Disneyland Hotel. Based on this September date, expansion began almost immediately after the court cases were settled.

Another mystery solved....sort of.

For vintage Disneyland Hotel images, please visit: http://www.magicalhotel.printroom.com/


Our website for the definitive book on the history of the Disneyland Hotel is http://www.magicalhotel.com/