By Elysabethe Thatcher, with special thanks to Disney College Program Alum Jasmine, Nikkii, and Andrea for helping me collect all of the facts!
Ah, Independence Day. A time for fireworks, barbecues, and parades. Besides Christmas I have to say the Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. I know, strange. But I love the warm weather, the good food, and most of all the history. Walt once said, “Disneyland would be a world of Americans, past and present, seen through the eyes of my imagination–a place of warmth and nostalgia, of illusion and color and delight.”
It seems that Walt himself was quite the patriot. Not only does his life exemplify “The American Dream”, but the parks also reflect his love for our great land. From the Liberty Bell Riverboat to the Hall of Presidents, it’s easy to see that Walt’s ideals and imagination were truly red, white, and blue. Liberty Square–a place you might tend to hurry through on your way to somewhere else–captures this special magic in ways that are so subtle they can be missed.
In honor of Independence Day I thought I would give you the top 5 little known facts about the very American land of Liberty Square.
- The Oak Tree located in Liberty Square has 13 lanterns hanging from the tree’s branches. The 13 lanterns are there to signify the 13 original colonies.
- The numbers on the buildings represent the year that the building was styled after. For example, if a building has the number 1776, it means that building was styled after the architecture in 1776. As you walk through Liberty Square, notice the progression of the architecture. The end where Haunted Mansion is located ,is made to represent upstate New York in the 1600s. As you move through the land and end in Frontierland, you have “pioneered west” to the late 1800s.
- The Hall of Presidents actually houses one of the presidential seals. There are only 3 in existence! The other two are located in The Oval Office and the building where the Liberty Bell is housed.
- Did you ever wonder why the shutters on the buildings in Liberty Square are crooked? It’s because during the Revolutionary War, Britain would not ship any metal to America for fear they would make bullets out of them. Instead they were forced to use leather. Over time the leather would stretch–resulting in crooked shutters! (How’s that for the Imagineers’ attention to detail?!)
- You may notice that there is a brown colored path running down Liberty Square. This is to represent the sewage that was thrown in the streets during the early American time period. Did you ever wonder why Liberty Square has no bathrooms? You guessed it! Because there was no indoor plumbing during colonial times. (That may make you rethink that extra large Diet Coke you were going to drink on your walk from Pinnocchio’s Village Haus to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.)
What is your favorite part of Liberty Square? Let us know in the comments below!