To put it simply — for a period in time — yes
Forest Lawn Memorial Park is free to enter, filled with things to do and twice the size of Disneyland. No wonder it was L.A.’s favorite attraction of the early 20th century.
When Dr. Hubert Eaton took over the cemetery in 1917, he reinvented himself as “The Founder” and set upon creating “A great park … filled with towering trees, sweeping lawns, splashing fountains, singing birds, beautiful statuary, cheerful flowers, noble memorial architecture with interiors full of light and color.” Sounds a little like Walt Disney’s park — minus the rides and filled with dead people.
The ideals of both men are the focus of a new exhibition, California Visionaries: The Lives and Legacies of Walt Disney and Hubert Eaton, running at the Forest Lawn Museum through Feb. 7.
It was Harrison “Buzz” Price, the consultant who selected Anaheim for Disneyland, who cited Forest Lawn as L.A.’s top attraction, with attendance of one million when Disneyland opened in 1955. Walt’s park drew 3.6 million that first year.
That same year, 244,000 people saw a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, Griffith Park Observatory drew 550,000 and the precursor to LACMA had 743,000 visitors — and Knott’s just under a million. So, the cemetery was certainly near the top. Marineland opened to 1.5 million guests in 1954 at a time when Olvera Street claimed 1.6 million visitors — so perhaps they were the big enchilada. Either way, Forest Lawn still draws just under a million visitors and Disneyland became a global juggernaut.
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