Disneyland, known as The Happiest Place on Earth, celebrates its 70th anniversary on July 17, 2025. Over the last 40 years, I have had the distinct honor of interviewing Disney cast members – and some who would become cast members – who were on hand for Disneyland’s opening. This is one in a series on that important day in Disney history.
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The chaos that enveloped Disneyland on July 17, 1955, has become legendary. Broiling hot weather, ride malfunctions, no working water fountains, too many people.
But the bedlam wasn’t just confined to the themed lands inside the berm. There was a madhouse outside the park as well.
Van France, who was hired months before Disneyland opened to devise training programs for all of the incoming new hires – in fact, he created the now legendary University of Disneyland training program – was given the task of overseeing automobile traffic heading in and out of the park on that fateful day.
About 50 days before the park opened, it dawned on Disney executive C.V. Wood that no thought had been given to how Disney would control the expected influx of motor vehicles.
At a hastily called meeting, a panicked Wood told France: “Unless we can move people in and out, we’re in deep trouble. I want you to learn all you can about roads and highways around here.”
Wood then introduced France to Jim Thompson from the Stanford Research Institute. “This man knows more about traffic projections than anybody,” Wood said, “and he’ll educate you.”
France admitted that “when it came to roads, highways and traffic, my experience was limited to driving a car. Now I was expected to become an instant expert.”
It was projected that about 90% of Disneyland’s opening-day guests would arrive by car. And the roads leading to Disneyland’s property were nowhere near as modern or as efficient as they are today.
There was the still-incomplete Santa Ana Freeway (now known as California Interstate Route 5) … and that was about it.
So, France put a committee together to find solutions. Included on that team were Keith Murdoch, Anaheim city manager; Mark Stephenson, Anaheim chief of police; Herb Null, captain in the California Highway Patrol; Fran Cheathan of the Orange County Road Department; Thompson and France.
One of the first priorities was to have an I-5 off-ramp onto Harbor Boulevard completed by opening day.
“Without that off-ramp, traffic will be backed up to San Francisco,” Wood warned. France promised the contractor that Disney would cover any overtime costs, and he also threw in lunch and some adult beverages to sweeten the deal.
The off-ramp was completed two days before the park opened.
France spent most of July 17 in Disneyland’s parking lot, overseeing traffic control. He worked closely with members of the California Highway Patrol and the Anaheim police to coordinate the effort.
On the night before opening, several CHP officers were housed in the administration building, sleeping on cots. They, as well as Anaheim police officers, used the building as their headquarters throughout the day on July 17. Fried chicken and hamburgers were shipped in from The Water Wheel to feed the officers.
The CHP officers taught France a valuable lesson when it came to vehicular traffic control. If drivers heading out of Disneyland asked for directions, be it to San Diego or Los Angeles, France was told to simply tell them: “Straight ahead.”
The thinking was that by giving drivers those instructions, there would be no delays or backups, and once they got rolling, the drivers would eventually find their way home.
France did manage to get inside the park briefly and what he saw was pandemonium. While there were long lines for attractions, the longest line was for the women’s restroom on Main Street. It seems there were too few comfort stations available throughout the park to accommodate the unexpected masses.
He also discovered that several guests took advantage of an unlocked door into Sleeping Beauty Castle, snuck inside, and managed to climb up the construction scaffolding to get a better view of the festivities. They were asked politely to come down and a guard was stationed at the door to prevent anyone else from entering.
On July 18, the day after Black Sunday, Disneyland opened its gates for the first time to paying customers.
“The curtain was up,” France said, “and now we had to learn how to operate this crazy dream. Since there had never been anything like Disneyland, there were no guidelines. Those were truly Disneyland’s pioneering days.”
Van France left Disneyland’s employ a few years after it opened, following Wood to set up training programs at several non-Disney ventures.
But France would return to the Disney fold in 1962, eventually earning Disney Legend status and a window in his honor on Main Street.
In an ironic twist, when France first started at Disneyland, he hired a young man named Dick Nunis to serve as his intern. When France returned to Disney, France worked for a new boss — none other than Dick Nunis.
Over the years, France went on to perform many roles at Disneyland, including area manager of Tomorrowland, organizational chairman of the Disneyland Recreation Club, and coordinator of the first Disneyland Cast Member magazine, Backstage Disneyland.
NEXT: Tom Nabbe was on the outside looking in on July 17, 1955. But that quickly changed.
Chuck Schmidt is an award-winning journalist and retired Disney cast member who has covered all things Disney since 1984 in both print and on-line. He has authored or co-authored eight books on Disney, including his On the Disney Beat, The Beat Goes On and Disney’s Dream Weavers for Theme Park Press. His latest book, Marty, Mickey and Me, for Theme Park Press, is available on Amazon.com. He has written a regular blog for AllEars.Net, called Still Goofy About Disney, since 2015.
Interesting article. Thank you.