Editor’s Note: As part of the Orlando Sentinel’s 150th birthday, we’re revisiting some stories from our archives. Today’s article involves the biggest scoop in Sentinel history and came from a journalist described infamously as ‘girl reporter.’ Emily Bavar’s story suggesting Walt Disney was behind massive land purchases in Central Florida and that he could create a new Disneyland here was initially underplayed by editors. They essentially decided to rerun her story again days later stripped across the top of the front page. “Is our ‘mystery’ industry Disneyland?” was the headline with the subhead, “Girl reporter convinced by Walt Disney.”
Bavar, the newspaper’s magazine editor at the time, had been on a trip to California with other reporters to meet and interview Disney. Her questioning of him and his answers led her to connect Disney to secret, massive land purchases in Orange and Osceola counties. Here’s her story as it appeared on Oct. 21, 1965 — three days before the Sentinel declared Disney was coming and five days before Florida Gov. Haydon Burns confirmed the news.
Orange County’s 30,000-acre mystery industry site may turn out to be an aircraft testing ground, an electronics research center or even a washing machine factory. But I predict nothing so mundane for the mystery site.
I predict it will be an extension of Walt Disney’s magic empire of fiction, fantasy and enormous wealth.
In sticking out my neck with such indifference to caution, I’ll go even farther and say the ultimate plan for the spread of acreage is something that could be hatched only in the fertile Disney imagination; that it will be worth watching and waiting for. Before elaborating let’s make it clear I have talked to no one connected with the sale of the property.
This incldues real estate brokers Nelson Boyce of Florida Ranchlands, Orlando, and Roy Hawkins, Miami, who handled the sale, and Paul L. E. Helliwell, Miami attorney representing the purchaser.
I have talked only to Walt Disney who, as I reported Sunday from California, did not say he had bought the property.
But neither did he say he had NOT bought it.
Orlando Sentinel
The Orlando Sentinel front page from Oct. 21, 1965 includes Emily Bavar’s article ‘Is Our Mystery Industry Disneyland?’
In his plush, studio offices in Burbank, Walt Disney did not confirm nor deny purchase of the Central Florida land and he adroitly hedged direct questions concerning it.
Whoever bought the land will announce it in time, he observed.
Did Disney know who had bought the land?
Well, you hear a lot of rumors. As a matter of fact, he had heard that he himself had bought it.
When he had had enough of the questioning he courteously explained that announcements of such magnitude must follow established corporate procedure and come from a board of directors.
Disney would not be free to confirm the purchase, he said, even if it were a fact.
And I firmly believe it is a fact.
A cartoon of Emily Bavar coaxing news of Walt Disney World from Walt Disney himself. This ran on the front page of the Sentinel with her scoop about the future Walt Disney World. (Sentinel file)
Land purchases recently recorded in Osceola County reveal that property adjoining and enlarging the Orange County mystery site has been bought by Anaheim, Calif., money. Anaheim is the site of Disneyland.
Original rumors of the purchase included Disney and then spread to other businesses.
But as Nov. 15, date of announcement of the purchase draws near — when Gov. Burns and officials involved with the sale will be in Orlando to make the joint announcement — I am more and more inclined to return to the early guess that Orange and Osceola Counties are slated to have some kind of a second Disneyland.
I repeat: I have talked to no one involved in the sale.
I have talked only to Mr. Disney. And I sure have talked to him: at a late morning interview in his office, at lunch where I sat at his right and monopolized as much of the conversation as I could, and after lunch in the brilliant California sunshine when Mr. Disney wanted to know how his blue sky compared to ours.
Walt Disney, 63-year-old artistic genius of the Disney empire, may not be an officer of Walt Disney Productions, parent company which produces motion pictures for theatrical and television distribution and operates Disneyland Park. But he’s the brains and the talent behind it even though the business is run by his brother, Roy president and chairman of the board.
In talking to Walt Disney it, became immediately apparent he had watched Eastern United States with interest and speculation.
Though he underestimated the population of Florida by several million, Disney was familiar with Florida tourist figures, the activity around Cape Kennedy and the scenic Central Florida area centered by Orlando.
He mentioned Crystal River and expressed a sentimental interest in Daytona Beach where his parents lived early in their marriage.
He offered climate and population reasons why Florida would be unacceptable as a site for an amusement park and then showed how these same reasons could be overcome.
Yet, Walt Disney’s plans for expanding his empire would not necessarily stop at another Disneyland.
Orlando Sentinel 150th birthday logo for Monday Memory feature.
He indicated as much when I asked him if the New York Fair shows were moving to “Disneyland, California.”
“Of course,” was his quick reply. “There is only ONE Disneyland.” Then, almost but not quite as an afterthought, he added, “as such.”
Walt Disney likes to needle reporters, particularly Florida reporters, with reasons why their state is too hot, too wet, too unpopulous, too remote and otherwise unsatisfactory for a major attraction.
But it is my personal belief that Walt Disney has met and conquered these reasons. I believe the imagination of the canny artist who rode to fame and fortune on an animated mouse named Mickey is capable of building anything from a park to an entire city in a Central Florida pasture. Mr. Disney’s brand of talent and promotion is not necessarily limited to another Disneyland.
Or, as he put it himself, “as such.”
More stories and features from the Orlando Sentinel’s 150 years of covering Central Florida can be found at OrlandoSentinel.com/150. Sign up for our free history newsletter at OrlandoSentinel.com/newsletters