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Did Disney build Fort Wilderness?


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I was talking to a friend who was talking to an electrician at the Fort. He was saying that he thought Disney bought an existing campground and then added to it to become what is now Fort Wilderness. I hadn't ever heard of that and figured this would be a good place to ask about it...

So? What was the very start of Fort Wilderness? Blank land and Disney built a campground? Or an existing campground that was bought by Disney?

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Doug, this 1973 check-in folder gives a good history of the development of the Fort:

FW19731.jpg

FW19732.jpg

Here are a couple of the old photos Carol remembers seeing.

This one shows Roy Disney exploring the land with some of the planners:

roydisneybaylake_zps294daf04.jpg

And this one shows those guys out in Bay Lake:

royshoetree_zpsfdb26a01.jpg

There was no commercial campground on the land before it was developed into Fort Wilderness.

Those photos and a lot more can be found in a slideshow here: http://www.wesh.com/article/historic-photos-how-disney-world-came-to-be-in-florida/4330944

TCD

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There was a camp there with a rustic a cabin, some in the Internet world of Disney have dubbed it "Roy's Cabin" and I have heard that Roy and company stayed there when the World was in its planning stages.  The campground has an interesting history and was part of the original plan Walt had for WDW, but was all but forgotten until much of the construction of the World was well nearing completion.  It was rather hastily built in order to open shortly after the official opening of MK.   The crew had to beg borrow and steal supplies in order to build the campground.  The Settlement area and the lower numbered loops were the original, with the other loops being added later.  Originally, there wasn't even a pool.  Look up the history of Fort Wilderness on YouTube, Internet and various podcasts.  

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Following up on what FWG said, it is significant to note that WDW opened on October 1, 1971.  At the time, that was the Magic Kingdom, and the Contemporary and Polynesian Resorts.  Fort Wilderness was not quite ready, and didn't open until about six weeks later on November 19, 1971.

The Fort's 45th birthday is coming up!

TCD

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34 minutes ago, ftwildernessguy said:

There was a camp there with a rustic a cabin, some in the Internet world of Disney have dubbed it "Roy's Cabin" and I have heard that Roy and company stayed there when the World was in its planning stages.  The campground has an interesting history and was part of the original plan Walt had for WDW, but was all but forgotten until much of the construction of the World was well nearing completion.  It was rather hastily built in order to open shortly after the official opening of MK.   The crew had to beg borrow and steal supplies in order to build the campground.  The Settlement area and the lower numbered loops were the original, with the other loops being added later.  Originally, there wasn't even a pool.  Look up the history of Fort Wilderness on YouTube, Internet and various podcasts.  

Correct, there was a great beach to the right of the boat walkway. They eventually built the Meadow Pool, but for years the beach was the place to be for water fun.

Used to be a lot of chairs picnic tables and hammocks on that side.  The Settlement Trading Post had a full deli that made sandwiches to order, and you could get a canned frosty adult beverage for about a $1 or less.  We used to stop at the Fort when we visited Orlando, rode the tram to the settlement, bought sandwiches, drinks and snacks for the entire family and picnicked on the beach.  Probably cost us about $20 for a family of 5 at that time.

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1 hour ago, PGHFiend said:

You guys are quick with this stuff....wish I had a family that had the means to go t WDW when I was a kid. Now I wish that I lived closer than 960 miles away.

I would love to only be 960 miles from the Fort. 

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22 hours ago, CCIntrigue...aka Gwen said:

Yes, it is!  I had no idea the Fort opened on my birthday (and NaCole's little man's too).

 

21 hours ago, PureTcrazy...rita said:

And my Mama's!

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Wow-That's neat that so many Fiends share a birthday with the Fort.

The reason I knew the Fort's birthday is that we camped there for the Fort's 35th birthday back in 2006, and they had special events that week:

fw%202006_zpsui1p493i.jpg

That retro campfire was memorable.  They had tables of sticks, graham crackers and chocolate bars set up and you could help yourself!  I haven't gotten anything free at Disney that I can recall since then!

Times sure have changed, and I don't expect that the current management will even remember the Fort's 45th birthday.

TCD

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The Fort is full of freebies.  Frankensoap, crockpots galore, large variety of brews in coolers at campsites.

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I was talking to a friend who was talking to an electrician at the Fort. He was saying that he thought Disney bought an existing campground and then added to it to become what is now Fort Wilderness. I hadn't ever heard of that and figured this would be a good place to ask about it...

So? What was the very start of Fort Wilderness? Blank land and Disney built a campground? Or an existing campground that was bought by Disney?

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Disney built the Fort. The construction was overseen by Keith Kambak, who had been sent by Dick Nunis to drive the US looking at campgrounds to determine what were the best features and practices so that they could use and even improve on those things for their own to be built at WDW. I did a show or two about this on my podcast (WDWmousenger.com) and wrote several articles about it on mouseplanet.com if you'd like to hear the background and some cool stories about it!

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