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FEATURED, JASON GARCIA, NEWS BY JASON GARCIA ON MARCH 15, 2010 AT 10:02 AM
Todays newspaper carried an interview with Chad Emerson, the author of a new book, Project Future, that documents the origins of Walt Disney World and the lengths to which Walt Disney Co. went to keep its development plans and land purchases secret. The interview that appeared in the paper had to be trimmed for space considerations; below is the full version.
CFB: How did you get interested in Disney World?
Well, I started researching for an academic article I was doing on improvement districts, and I stumbled across how the Reedy Creek Improvement District was pretty unique among all other improvement districts. So I started writing this academic article, and my wife and some other people were kind of reading it for me, and they started saying, If you take out all this legal language and these footnotes, this would be a pretty interesting story in and of itself, about how Disney selected Central Florida and then purchased all of the land. So as I went through the project, I kind of had that in the back of my mind. The academic article was published, it was well received and I said, You know, lets turn this into a book. There are so many secretive and spy-like maneuvers that went on, all legal, but very interesting and intertwined. Its kind of a story about Disneys unconventional but entirely legal means to acquire 27,000 acres without anyone ever knowing that it was them until they announced it in October of 1965.
CFB: Can you imagine something like that happening today?
It would be impossible today because of the ability to communicate. Disney was able to disguise its identity and its employees identities as they traveled from California. They would very rarely, if ever, fly directly from California to Florida. Theyd stop through and use fictitious names. Nowadays that would almost be impossible to be on a plane not using your real name.
CFB: What surprised you the most during your research?
How close Disney World came to almost not existing or at least not existing in Central Florida. There were a couple of points at which Central Florida almost did not become the home of Project Future or Disney World. Theres an interesting story in the late 1950s where Walt Disney had basically made a handshake deal with a guy by the name of John MacArthur, a billionaire from down there [in Palm Beach County]. And Walt was going to build a City of Tomorrow, the documents all said. You can imagine that was something that was the early inklings of Epcot. The deal was handshook on and Walt flew back to California. Roy [Disney, Walts brother] and some of the other executives came back but when they came back they realized that Walt had not acquired as much land as they thought they needed. They didnt want to repeat the Disneyland mistake of having a lot of incompatible businesses creep up next to them. So had that not fallen through, its pretty unlikely to think that Disney would have then gone ahead and built Disney World, at least to the extent it did, in Central Florida.
But the most interesting story I found involved Tufts College in Boston. One of the largest parcels that Disney was going to buy, they had secured a deal with the Demetree brothers to buy this land a lot of which Epcot sits on these days. They bought the surface rights, but the Demetrees did not own the underground rights, because back then the underground rights were thought to be more valuable, with oil speculation; Shell Oil had come into Florida, they were drilling. As it turned out, there wasnt any oil or phosphorous underground that was extremely valuable, but Tufts College wasnt sure, so they were very reticent to sell those underground rights. Disneys in-house attorney, Bob Foster, the Demetrees and their outside counsel, Paul Helliwell a Miami attorney with literally a spy background in the predecessor to the CIA they flew up to Boston, met in this conference room [with Tufts board members] to try to secure the underground rights. If they couldnt secure the underground rights, someone could have come in in the middle of the day and started drilling in the middle of Epcot for oil. So they went to the meeting, it went all day, and the Demetree brothers thought, This is going to fall through. This is not working out. They wont agree. And then Paul Helliwell pulled aside a couple of board members from Tufts, they went into another room, and they came out with a deal. Today, no one is really sure what exactly Mr. Helliwell said in that office to secure that deal. But without that deal, Disney World probably wouldnt exist in Central Florida today.
CFB: Did Disney cooperate with your writing this book?
A lot of former Disney cast members and executives were obviously very helpful. Lee Cockerell wrote the foreward. And there were other folks: Joni Newkirk, Greg Emmer, Brad Rex. They [Disney] didnt officially provide any help. Now, I will say this: The Reedy Creek Improvement District, [District Administrator] Ray Maxwell and his team, were extremely helpful. I went through mounds and mounds of old minutes from Reedy Creek Improvement District meetings dating all the way back to the very beginning in the mid-60s. Without Ray and his teams help, the book would have been much more difficult to do.
CFB: Theres been debate over the years about whether Disney should have its own government. How do you feel?
I understand the concern people have about how this setup could be abused, because it really could. But when you thought about the industry that Disneys in, this customer-service industry where brand is so very important to them, they have such a strong incentive to govern well. If this would have been any industry or a plant of some type, they wouldnt want bad publicity but, really, who knows what would matter to them. But for Disney, they have to be so careful about the way the brand is. I think it just speaks for itself. Theres been some times where theres been bond issues and things like that theyve argued about, but, overall, I dont think many people in Orlando would say that having Disney there has been a bad thing. In fact, its probably been very useful. And without this improvement district, Disney was not coming. Im convinced of that.
CFB: Youre a law professor. What drew you to the theme-park industry?
One of my mentors said when I started researching, when I took my job at Faulkner Universitys law school, they said you need to pick a couple of areas to research: One which is really academically stimulating and one which is legitimate but something you enjoy doing. Some people do sports law, some people do entertainment law. And I just always loved the theme-park industry. Not just Disney, but the theme-park industry as a whole. So I started doing some research in that area and I realized there werent many professors researching a lot of the issues. So I published an article early on, my first law review article as a law professor, and it turned out to be pretty popular. A lot of industry groups invited me to come present to their members. And from there, it just developed into kind of a little niche that I became known for.
CFB: What was the article about?
It was about the different types of state regulations of amusement parks. Fixed-site amusement parks. The way it works in the United States is that mobile parks and things like that are generally governed by the Consumer Products Safety Commission. Fixed-site parks parks which are not going anywhere, the Six Flags, SeaWorld and Disneys of the world theyre governed generally on the state level. And theres this debate [about whether the federal government should govern them] but it was more of a polemic argument than it was one looking at data. So I started to look at data and my conclusion was that these issues are better regulated at state level because the state is in a better position to go to these parks on a seasonal basis.
CFB: Do you have a favorite park?
Epcot. My perfect theme park day is a 70-degree afternoon starting about 2 oclock, just wandering World Showcase, sampling good food and watching Illuminations at the end of the evening.
CFB: Do you have another book in mind?
Im working on one right now. It kind of picks up a little bit after this story ends and discusses how Central Florida became the theme-park capital of, arguably, the world.
Todays newspaper carried an interview with Chad Emerson, the author of a new book, Project Future, that documents the origins of Walt Disney World and the lengths to which Walt Disney Co. went to keep its development plans and land purchases secret. The interview that appeared in the paper had to be trimmed for space considerations; below is the full version.
CFB: How did you get interested in Disney World?
Well, I started researching for an academic article I was doing on improvement districts, and I stumbled across how the Reedy Creek Improvement District was pretty unique among all other improvement districts. So I started writing this academic article, and my wife and some other people were kind of reading it for me, and they started saying, If you take out all this legal language and these footnotes, this would be a pretty interesting story in and of itself, about how Disney selected Central Florida and then purchased all of the land. So as I went through the project, I kind of had that in the back of my mind. The academic article was published, it was well received and I said, You know, lets turn this into a book. There are so many secretive and spy-like maneuvers that went on, all legal, but very interesting and intertwined. Its kind of a story about Disneys unconventional but entirely legal means to acquire 27,000 acres without anyone ever knowing that it was them until they announced it in October of 1965.
CFB: Can you imagine something like that happening today?
It would be impossible today because of the ability to communicate. Disney was able to disguise its identity and its employees identities as they traveled from California. They would very rarely, if ever, fly directly from California to Florida. Theyd stop through and use fictitious names. Nowadays that would almost be impossible to be on a plane not using your real name.
CFB: What surprised you the most during your research?
How close Disney World came to almost not existing or at least not existing in Central Florida. There were a couple of points at which Central Florida almost did not become the home of Project Future or Disney World. Theres an interesting story in the late 1950s where Walt Disney had basically made a handshake deal with a guy by the name of John MacArthur, a billionaire from down there [in Palm Beach County]. And Walt was going to build a City of Tomorrow, the documents all said. You can imagine that was something that was the early inklings of Epcot. The deal was handshook on and Walt flew back to California. Roy [Disney, Walts brother] and some of the other executives came back but when they came back they realized that Walt had not acquired as much land as they thought they needed. They didnt want to repeat the Disneyland mistake of having a lot of incompatible businesses creep up next to them. So had that not fallen through, its pretty unlikely to think that Disney would have then gone ahead and built Disney World, at least to the extent it did, in Central Florida.
But the most interesting story I found involved Tufts College in Boston. One of the largest parcels that Disney was going to buy, they had secured a deal with the Demetree brothers to buy this land a lot of which Epcot sits on these days. They bought the surface rights, but the Demetrees did not own the underground rights, because back then the underground rights were thought to be more valuable, with oil speculation; Shell Oil had come into Florida, they were drilling. As it turned out, there wasnt any oil or phosphorous underground that was extremely valuable, but Tufts College wasnt sure, so they were very reticent to sell those underground rights. Disneys in-house attorney, Bob Foster, the Demetrees and their outside counsel, Paul Helliwell a Miami attorney with literally a spy background in the predecessor to the CIA they flew up to Boston, met in this conference room [with Tufts board members] to try to secure the underground rights. If they couldnt secure the underground rights, someone could have come in in the middle of the day and started drilling in the middle of Epcot for oil. So they went to the meeting, it went all day, and the Demetree brothers thought, This is going to fall through. This is not working out. They wont agree. And then Paul Helliwell pulled aside a couple of board members from Tufts, they went into another room, and they came out with a deal. Today, no one is really sure what exactly Mr. Helliwell said in that office to secure that deal. But without that deal, Disney World probably wouldnt exist in Central Florida today.
CFB: Did Disney cooperate with your writing this book?
A lot of former Disney cast members and executives were obviously very helpful. Lee Cockerell wrote the foreward. And there were other folks: Joni Newkirk, Greg Emmer, Brad Rex. They [Disney] didnt officially provide any help. Now, I will say this: The Reedy Creek Improvement District, [District Administrator] Ray Maxwell and his team, were extremely helpful. I went through mounds and mounds of old minutes from Reedy Creek Improvement District meetings dating all the way back to the very beginning in the mid-60s. Without Ray and his teams help, the book would have been much more difficult to do.
CFB: Theres been debate over the years about whether Disney should have its own government. How do you feel?
I understand the concern people have about how this setup could be abused, because it really could. But when you thought about the industry that Disneys in, this customer-service industry where brand is so very important to them, they have such a strong incentive to govern well. If this would have been any industry or a plant of some type, they wouldnt want bad publicity but, really, who knows what would matter to them. But for Disney, they have to be so careful about the way the brand is. I think it just speaks for itself. Theres been some times where theres been bond issues and things like that theyve argued about, but, overall, I dont think many people in Orlando would say that having Disney there has been a bad thing. In fact, its probably been very useful. And without this improvement district, Disney was not coming. Im convinced of that.
CFB: Youre a law professor. What drew you to the theme-park industry?
One of my mentors said when I started researching, when I took my job at Faulkner Universitys law school, they said you need to pick a couple of areas to research: One which is really academically stimulating and one which is legitimate but something you enjoy doing. Some people do sports law, some people do entertainment law. And I just always loved the theme-park industry. Not just Disney, but the theme-park industry as a whole. So I started doing some research in that area and I realized there werent many professors researching a lot of the issues. So I published an article early on, my first law review article as a law professor, and it turned out to be pretty popular. A lot of industry groups invited me to come present to their members. And from there, it just developed into kind of a little niche that I became known for.
CFB: What was the article about?
It was about the different types of state regulations of amusement parks. Fixed-site amusement parks. The way it works in the United States is that mobile parks and things like that are generally governed by the Consumer Products Safety Commission. Fixed-site parks parks which are not going anywhere, the Six Flags, SeaWorld and Disneys of the world theyre governed generally on the state level. And theres this debate [about whether the federal government should govern them] but it was more of a polemic argument than it was one looking at data. So I started to look at data and my conclusion was that these issues are better regulated at state level because the state is in a better position to go to these parks on a seasonal basis.
CFB: Do you have a favorite park?
Epcot. My perfect theme park day is a 70-degree afternoon starting about 2 oclock, just wandering World Showcase, sampling good food and watching Illuminations at the end of the evening.
CFB: Do you have another book in mind?
Im working on one right now. It kind of picks up a little bit after this story ends and discusses how Central Florida became the theme-park capital of, arguably, the world.
