A specially commissioned postcard commemorating the Centennial Celebration. Art by Dave Brooks.

What has a small Mid-Western town, population 2558, in the rolling hills of Missouri and some three hours drive east of Kansas City to do with Walt Disney? Well, quite a lot actually, because this was the place where the four year old Disney spent the happiest years of his childhood, the place where his itinerant family settled in 1906 to farm forty five acres of land just north of the town. This was the place where the boy Disney could run free and experience the security of life close to the land. He was part not only of farm life and could work with and observe the animals on the farm, but could also explore the life of the little town itself. And, too, there was the railway -- the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad ran right through the town, and the town itself grew up because of the railroad, having been founded only eighteen years beforehand in 1888. The Disney family had to move on in 1911 but those five years, a vital period in any child's upbringing, meant a great deal to Walt Disney.

Years later, after Disney's first success, he sent his parents to Marceline for a holiday in 1933 and he wrote to the town in 1938 on the occasion of its golden jubilee, commenting in a characteristically authentic tone -- this is not the phraseology of a ghost writer -- that Marceline had made an indelible impression on him as a youngster. The letter bears quoting at some length:

"More things of importance happened to me in Marceline than have happened since -- or are likely to in the future. Things, I mean, like experiencing my first country life, seeing my first circus parade, attending my first school, seeing my first motion picture!... One of my fondest childhood memories is of Doc Sherwood. He used to encourage me in my drawing, and give me little presents for my efforts...My brother Roy reminds me of another flyer I took in the line of art at that time. I painted one side of our house with black pitch. The outcome must have been slightly frightening, to say the least, and I wasn't thanked for my efforts by the family...Everything connected with Marceline was a thrill to us, coming as we did from a city the size of Chicago. I'm glad I'm a small town boy and I'm glad Marceline was my town. Thanks a lot for letting me write my impressions, and say hello to all the folks..." (1)

Many of Disney's interests can be traced back to Marceline; the farmyard and rural ambience of the early shorts (Mickey was never an urban mouse) and the love of trains. Trains still roar their way frequently through the town, past the little station, or depot as it is known. (Alas, Amtrak's passenger service no longer makes a scheduled stop.) The boy Disney would run down the lane from the farm to listen to the trains roar over the bridge. The lane is still there, unsurfaced, and the bridge is there, and many of the places associated with him are still there in Marceline. Many people remember him as a genial visitor in the late 1950s.

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Notes

1. Walt Disney, "The Marceline I Knew," The Marceline News, 2 September, 1938.