OPINION: Hometown magic

Last Friday, I finally took a day trip I’ve been planning since I moved to Creston. Just a three-hour drive from here is the hometown of Mr. Walt Disney.

Though not born there, Disney lived in Marceline, Missouri, from the ages of 4 to 9 and credited his family’s time in Marceline as being one of the happiest and most formative times of his life. This is also where he found his love for trains, a passion that would continue throughout his life and can be seen in Disney theme parks even today.

Marceline is a small town, approximately 2,100 people, but its pride in the Disney family is huge. The old train depot in Marceline has been turned into the Walt Disney Hometown Museum. When Disney was alive, he attended the opening of various city amenities named after him, including Walt Disney Elementary School and Walt Disney Municipal Park. Other similarly named areas include the swimming pool and the post office. His constant visits helped keep the magic alive for citizens, as did his contributions.

In almost every Disney theme park, you’ll find Main Street, U.S.A, the idealized downtown of a small American town in the early 1900s. Disney based Main Street, U.S.A. directly off of Marceline, with specific buildings from Marceline’s main strip being found in each Disney park. In return, Marceline has given Mickey ears to the street sign for their Main Street!

The setting of the 1955 film “Lady and the Tramp” is based on Marceline, and just one year later, Disney held the premiere for his movie “The Great Locomotive Chase” at the movie theater in Marceline.

In 1960, when the Walt Disney Elementary School opened, Disney had some of his artists come in and paint various characters on the walls inside the school.

In 1966, Disney donated a ride from Disneyland in California to a park in Marceline. Midget Autopia was open to families in Marceline longer than it was running in his theme park, and while the ride no longer runs today, there is a walking path along the ride’s track.

Disney had one major plan for Marceline he never got to complete. When Disney died in December 1966, plans were found on his desk for a living history theme park in Marceline. While his company had already begun purchasing land for this project, once Disney died, the company decided to focus on the project that would become Walt Disney World in Florida and closed the book on the Marceline project.

While it’s easy to think of what could have been if Disney’s Marceline project had happened, the citizens of Marceline are still loudly proud of the Disney family. The museum volunteer I spoke to said her love of Disney began when she was very young due to Disney’s many visits home. She met him when she was in elementary school and has been a fan ever since.

Even the restaurant I went to, though not actually Disney themed, had various food items named after Disney characters. For example, chicken strips were Hei Hei strips, while the seafood basket was called Jacques and friends.

The relationship between a person and their hometown is interesting to me. While it’s hard to find too many people with the same fame caliber as Disney, many of those who do aren’t from as small of towns as Marceline.

In Appleton, Wisconsin, the only person I know of is Harry Houdini. We have a plaza named after him and a section at the local museum about him, but not much more than that. Creston has a small handful of notable people, but we don’t have anything dedicated to any of them. To be fair, none of these people ever came back to publicly give back in major ways to their hometowns either.

Whether publicly celebrated or not, there’s something special for a community when they see one of their own doing something great. Knowing a person shared experiences with you, knew the same people you did, yet made it to great heights globally brings pride, both in the person and the town that created them.

It also makes me think about my hometown. What parts of Neenah, Wisconsin, made me who I am today? In 25, 50 years, what will stand out to me about the town? Though only a few years removed from it, I still get shocked by changes when I go back. I think there’s a little bit of Disney in all of us when it comes to our hometowns, remembering the place that made us who we are and keeping our idealized “Main Street, U.S.A.” in our hearts, no matter how much has changed since then.