The first map Walt Disney ever drew of Disneyland has been re-discovered in California

A rare first-ever Disneyland map that was created in 1953 by Walt Disney himself is up for auction.

The map was drawn to show investors about Walt’s theme park idea, so that he and his brother could get the funding they needed to build it.

Experts believe that is the single most significant piece of Disneyland memorabilia to come to auction to date.

By the early 1950s, Walt Disney was already a household name, thanks to Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, as well as films like as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Alice in Wonderland, and Cinderella.

But his attention had by then strayed into amusement parks, having come up with the idea while watching his children play on a carousel in a local Los Angeles park.

At first, Walt planned to build his park in an empty lot next to his Burbank Studio, but his imagination quickly outgrew the small space and he set his sights on bigger locations.

By 1953, he had borrowed all of the money he could and even mortgaged his own home to kick-start the project, when he realised that he needed outside help, so his brother scheduled meetings in New York with some banks and the three television networks.

On the morning of Saturday, September 26, 1953, Walt called on his friend and former employee Herb Ryman to draw a large aerial view of Disneyland by Monday morning for Roy to take to New York that Monday.

Walt spent two days narrating in fine detail every aspect of his park that he could muster, and Ryman, under Walt’s direction, turned his ideas into the first large, tangible visual representation of Disneyland ever created.

Roy’s presentation proved successful with ABC, who agreed to give Walt the funding he needed to build his park in exchange for access to Disney’s film library, and a new Disneyland television show hosted by Walt himself.

The map was returned to Walt where he consistently used it in his meetings with developers and investors.

In 1954, he had the map enhanced with additional black outlines and colour, and included several new sketches within it so that it could be used as the first promotional image of Disneyland that the public would be able to see.

In September of 1954, one year after the map was created; the newly enhanced original was shown to the public as the first ever image of the park in magazines and newspapers.

Then, in March 1955, during one of the final planning meetings for the park, Grenade Curran, a young Disney employee, noticed the original map abandoned in a corner of Walt’s office, asked if he could keep it as a memento and was given it by Walt.

Curran stored it away carefully as a memento of his time at the Studio and his friendship with Walt.

Now, over 60 years later, the original Disneyland map has been re-discovered and is coming to auction at Van Eaton Galleries in Sherman Oaks, California next month, where it is expected to sell for £580,000 to 780,000.

Mike Van Eaton, co-owner of Van Eaton Galleries, says, “That an artefact like this, which is so deeply rooted in the creation of Disneyland, still exists today is astonishing.

“We have an item that Walt Disney created during a 48 hour period of hard work and imaginative genius, which succeeded in getting him the funding he needed to build one of the most successful endeavours of his career, and which he continued to personally use throughout the entire building stages of Disneyland.

“Without this map, there would likely not be a Disneyland today.”