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Throughout the Magic Kingdom, you’ll find a wealth of hidden details and overlooked elements that so many guests walk right past. While we’ve covered many of them on this site, there’s one that I haven’t quite shared, the Lost Boys barrel. As you can imagine, it is much more than simply a barrel used as decor or added scenery in the cleverly designed land.

To the surprise of many, this simple detail holds a quite practical application. In the development of Fantasyland, each aspect was designed to be period specific to Old World Europe. Everything from the architecture to the music you hear in the background as you stroll through the land was designed with the purpose of bringing a story to life before your very eyes.

However, Walt set a precedent for this area in other projects that revealed his immense attention to detail. In the parks he intended to develop a story in real life just as he did on screen. Walt could take these ideas he developed on a movie screen and turn them into something real and tangible that guests could interact with. However, everything had to be perfect. Every element had to be period specific and every aspect of the experience had to develop an authentic representation of the “story” being portrayed.

So, in the production phase, Imagineering took this concept and applied it to every detail of the experience. That concept is what brings us back to today’s “Hidden Detail.”

As you can imagine, accidents happen in real life environments, so every possible precaution had to be made to guarantee the safety of the guests in the park. In order to do so, a fire hydrant had to be installed in the land. That requirement presented a challenge and conflict of interests to the Old World Europe theming. To rectify the issue, Imagineering got a bit creative and developed the Lost Boys Fire Brigade barrel. 

Many of you will certainly recognize the “Lost Boys” reference from Peter Pan, but it also brings us to the second part of the story.

The barrel itself sits about 20 feet from entrance to the Peter Pan’s Flight attraction and is inscribed with the phrase, “Fire Chief Richard LePere Jr. – Lost Boys Fire Brigade.” As you can imagine, this is the ultimate connection between the aforementioned issue and the barrel’s design. Disney developed this barrel in order to cover a fire hydrant type device which could be easily utilized by the Reedy Creek Fire Department in the case of an emergency while still painting an immersive environment for the guests. 

While that portion of the story may be fairly self explanatory, the story behind the name is not quite as obvious. In the world of Disney, very few things are done simply to add detail, but rather to further develop the backstory for the guests. In this case, the name written on the barrel is actually the title of the Fire Departments Chief which serves the Magic Kingdom and surrounding areas. The name associated with the fire chief has changed over time, so the barrel has been adapted and repainted to reflect the current individuals title (As I am not currently a local, the name could have changed since my last trip to the park, but I believe that is the current description). In years past, the hydrant facade featured the name Ray Colburn, the former fire chief. 

The barrel certainly has an intricate story behind it, but it also serves an increasingly necessary function as the parks become more advanced and more guests travel through the gates each and every day. Many who visit the Magic Kingdom will walk by this hidden gem for years on end without ever realizing the simple secret it holds. 

Over the years, the Main Street U.S.A experience has changed drastically. However, what many guests will always remember as an iconic part of the experience was the GAF Camera Center. While the center itself proved quite useless later on in Disney Parks history, originally it was a huge part of one of the greatest technological improvements of that time. 

In the early years of the Magic Kingdom, guests of all ages scrambled to this simple location to gear up for their day in the park by buying film, renting cameras, and receiving photo guides for their journey through the park. The concept, given the timeframe of it’s existence, was certainly a cutting edge technology that really helped fulfill a wonderful day. 

Throughout your travel plans, if you ran out of film or simply wanted to get some of your pictures started in the development process, all you had to do was stop by the camera center and Disney could mail your photos right to your home! While, by today’s standards, that is incredibly slow, in the mid 70’s it was an outstanding convenience. 

As the years went by, video cameras were slowly developed and Disney decided that a great service for guests would be to offer video camera rentals for their day in the park. Today, we think of a video camera as one of two things, our phone, or simply a small digital camera. However, at the time when the technology was first developing, Disney offered a service where guests could rent the giant over the shoulder style recording devices with the detached gigantic battery to cart through the Magic Kingdom. 

Unfortunately, as you can imagine, the camera center was overcome by the growing trends towards smaller digital cameras and alternative recording options. However, as late as 1998, the center had a role in the park under a few different names. GAF (General Aniline and Film) lost it’s sponsorship of the location at one point and it was replaced by the Polaroid branding and also Kodak at different periods in Disney history. While many of you will recognize the “Kodak Picture Locations” that appeared in the parks, there presence and name has changed a few times over the years. 

The Camera Center, despite it’s many sponsors, was a place that many guests have fond memories of, just like any other attraction or section of the Disney Parks. The amount of memories that must have flooded through that location on a daily basis is truly astonishing to think about. Guests across the country and across the world could have shared a little piece of their vacation with the cast of this seemingly simple element of the parks. 

While the GAF Camera Center, or rather one of it’s other given names as a result of sponsorships, was replaced by the Confectionery in 1998, the legacy of the camera center lives on in the photos and videos this unique place helped develop over the years. The location told a story, and the story wasn’t it’s own, but rather the joys of a Disney vacation shared through the memories of guests who visited the parks each and every day. 

So, next time you pass by the Confectionery, or step through the opening from the Chapeau hat shop next door, be sure to take a moment to remember what may have very well been a huge part of someone else’s classic Disney vacation experience. Those memories created by these simple experiences are something we all hang on to in one way or another. It’s something that is distinctly Disney and quite difficult to explain without experiencing first hand, but really is one of the iconic factors that keeps us going back to Walt Disney World! 

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Believe it or not, the Liberty Tree concept developed directly around the time the Johnny Tremain film released. While many of you may be wondering how that is possible when the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World didn’t officially open until 1971, the answer is found in the lands rich history. 

The Liberty Tree lives on today in Magic Kingdom, but at one point the entire Liberty Square concept was destined for Disneyland. Sadly, for those of you on the west coast, the technology Walt needed to make his dreams for the land a reality, were not possible at the time. Thankfully, as always with the Disney company, a good idea never truly dies. Later on, Walt decided to bring that once conceived idea for Disneyland to his latest development, Walt Disney World. 

As is typical in large scale projects, Walt’s Imagineering and horticulture group faced a daunting task. Unfortunately, Walt never got to see his Liberty square (Liberty Street in his original design) concept really fully developed before his death in 1966, but a few select Imagineers continued his plans down to the very details. One of those many intricate details led to one of the greatest challenges in theming history, the placement of the Liberty Tree. 

In the development phase, the design group found what they believed to be the perfect Florida representation of the tree pictured in the classic Johnny Tremain film, a Southern Live Oak. The tree was perfect, but there was one huge problem, relocating it. Typically, tree relocation is quite simple, but when the tree being moved way over 38 tons, a whole new series of challenges present themselves. If you use typical methods of roping the trunk and lifting, it could destroy the delicate inner structures of the tree (it would’ve been destroyed by it’s own weight). On top of the weight problem, Disney’s earmarked tree was 8 miles east of where it needed to be relocated to in the Magic Kingdom. 

The solution to their problem ultimately tells a story of it’s own. In the early days of Disneyland, Walt told one of his top landscapers, Bill Evans, that he wanted to remove a Coral tree from the park in order to replace it with a man-made tree which could support the weight of the electrical equipment needed for his next big idea. While Evans new the tree was too large to up and move without damaging the nature of the tree, he found a new way to disperse the weight and safely relocate it. In order to do so, a series of beams were drilled through the tough inner core of the tree to disperse the weight. The beams which were drilled in a crossing pattern would spread the weight around and allow for the safe removal of the Coral tree. 

Years down the road, Evans was still with the Disney company and conveniently helped with this Liberty Tree project. Borrowing form his earlier idea, the tree was lifted in a similar manner and relocated over a period of time to the location where it still stands today. 

So, while many guests assume the tree is fake, it was certainly all a part of the larger plan for the land and a detail that Disney certainly did not have to include. Fortunately, Disney knew what their former head of creations would have wanted, and the backstory is something that Walt recognized would have purpose years down the line. The authenticity was always a key part of the experience and very well could have played a role in what has become the most untouched land in Disney history. 

The theming is certainly iconic, but a few details really put the tree into the spirit of “Liberty.” High in the branches above guests touring the parks lie 13 lanterns representing the original thirteen colonies and the American Revolution. While the lamps are simple, the nod to originality and history adds a detail that many guests will simply overlook. If your in the area, be sure to look for a minuteman’s rifle in the windows near by and a simple doll cleverly placed in the window of the Hall of Presidents. 

As the story goes, during the unfortunate circumstances of much of the revolution, a simple doll in the window would exhibit that a child lived in the home in case of a fire. While other stories surround this doll, it shares a unique nature and simple historical element that creates a sense of authenticity throughout the land. 

Today, the Liberty Tree marks the largest living tree ever transplanted on/to Disney property. It is also the largest living aspect of the Magic Kingdom and has helped develop over 500 new trees across property. The Liberty Tree itself is certainly beautiful, but be sure to think of it’s rich history next time you pass through Liberty Square. Appreciate the details, and take in one of the last stories Walt Disney personally developed. 

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