Building WDW's Magic Kingdom

Oh my! This is quite a find!

A grand daughter recently discovered a treasure trove of pictures belonging to her grandparents who helped build and worked at the Magic Kingdom till their retirements. The pictures being shown here are all the various construction scenes during the building of the Magic Kingdom.

Her grandfather, Chester "Chet" Wise, helped build the Disney park starting in 1969 and continued to work there until he retired in the late 1980s. Her grandmother, Elizabeth Wise, also worked at the park. They lived right by it until Chet Wise died in 2002, so Valdes visited often. 

 

After her grandmother died in 2012, Valdes was given a box of pictures that she didn't examine until she was packing to move last March. 

 

What she found was a treasure trove: her grandfather had taken dozens of pictures of the Magic Kingdom under construction, often from high above.

I found it rather fun to play the game "Where In the Magic Kingdom Is This?" when I was looking through the various photos.

But not only that, but her grandparents also got to live full time on a Disney property!

My grandparents were one of 10 families that actually lived on Disney property, because Disney needed a handful of residents in order to incorporate Lake Buena Vista as an actual city back in the early 1970s. 

 

These employees were handpicked, and my grandparents lived on Disney property until my grandfather passed away. It was so close to the Magic Kingdom that I could see fireworks from their front yard when I was a kid.

 

Wow. That must have been quite magical! 

I'm hoping that she will do something to have these pictures exhibited. I'm sure the Disney archive people would love to get their hands on these.

Zz.