Western River Expedition: Magic Kingdom’s Unbuilt Imagineering Masterpiece

So Magic Kingdom would get a new, Western adventure on the empty plot of land in its northwestern corner… Big Thunder Mountain.

Still, Marc Davis stood faithfully behind his Western River Expedition and set out to find a park for his pet project.

Disneyland?

At first, he simply collected himself and pressed on; taking some of the vignettes and animal figures he’d planned for the ride to California, petitioning to have them added to his 1960 masterpiece, Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland. Just imagine his heartbreak when he was told that, unfortunately, his new scenes couldn’t be added to the ride since Disneyland’s Mine Train would soon be bulldozed… for Big Thunder Mountain.

To make matters worse, California’s Big Thunder Mountain was really only intended to be the prologue to an entire new land cooked up by Tony Baxter, as told in one of our most popular entries, Possibilityland: Discovery Bay.

As part of the plans, Imagineers considered adding a mini Land of Legends to connect the dead-end Bear Country with Discovery Bay. This miniature land would’ve been themed around American folklore, and Western River Expedition was proposed among its lineup! But when Discovery Bay was canned, so was the Land of Legends. Instead, Disneyland would only get one new ride… Big Thunder Mountain.

Tokyo Disneyland?

Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain opened in 1979, followed by Magic Kingdom’s in 1980.

Insiders say Marc Davis was overjoyed when he heard of plans for a Tokyo Disneyland to open in 1982, especially given the Japanese’s unquenchable love of the American West. And indeed, Tokyo Disneyland might’ve proved the perfect place to put Western River Expedition… except that the Oriental Land Company responsible for owning and operating the Japanese resort was clear: they wanted their Disneyland to be a faithful recreation of the original, including a shot-for-shot duplicate of Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean.

As for their Westernland, dedicated to the American frontier? They wanted… you guessed it… Big Thunder Mountain.

Indeed, during the 1970s and 1980s – the first years without Walt – Card Walker and the executives at Disney shied away from any major, expensive investments, opting for quick-return thrill rides or copies of classics. It wasn’t until the 1990s – and, ironically, under Michael Eisner’s regime and Tony Baxter’s watch – that Disney deliberately turned back to detailed, elaborate attractions once again.

Disneyland Paris?

Marc Davis officially retired from Disney Imagineering in 1978… long before anyone had even dreamed of a Disneyland Paris that would open in 1992.

Tony Baxter – by this point, a leading star in the organization – was given creative control over the Parisian park, and the opportunity to select a team to design it from the ground up. What that group created is almost unanimously understood as the most beautiful Disneyland-style park on Earth, with each themed land protected by a berm of its own; totally immersive, built-out, storied, and packed with romance and European storytelling, Disneyland Paris was truly a beacon.

And c’mon… with Baxter designing it from the ground up, of course it would have a Big Thunder Mountain and a Pirates of the Caribbean (even if the latter is markedly different from its American counterparts).  But Baxter found a way to incorporate perhaps the most thoughtful allusion to Western River Expedition yet, and in a most unexpected place… Our third place where the never-built ride’s DNA lives on…

3. Phantom Manor

Opened: 1992

A little reimagining would be necessary to make the American West matter to European audiences. So forget Davey Crockett, Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn… In Paris, Frontierland would be reimagined as the town of Thunder Mesa (yep!), its misty waters reigned over by the hauntingly beautiful spires of Big Thunder Mountain. In perhaps the first attempt in Disney’s playbook to do so, all of this new Frontierland would be wrapped into a single continuity, with a single overarching story and setting uniting all of the land’s rides, shows, restaurants, and attractions.

In this continuity, the active gold mines of Big Thunder Mountain are the property of one Mr. Henry Ravenswood, a miserly old man who’s none too happy when his beautiful daughter Melanie falls for a lowly miner…

Cut to the park’s one-of-a-kind take on the Haunted Mansion – magnificent enough to earn its own in-depth feature, Modern Marvels: Phantom Manor. Inside, guests relive the haunting tale of Melanie’s mysteriously lost love and its nightmarish grip on the abandoned estate. It’s an operatic reinterpretation of Marc Davis and Claude Coats’ Anaheim original, for sure, but it also has a noteworthy Easter egg for Western River fans.

Part of the expanded Phantom Manor is a trip through the craggily, earthquake-devastated Phantom Canyon town outside, packed with scenes, gags, and figures once planned for the Western River Expedition.

It’s a shocking and wonderful twist that makes Phantom Manor feel like a must-see, a world away from the Haunted Mansions most Disney fans know so well… and a quaint reminder of the Western River Expedition that could’ve been.

Possibilitylands

When we look at the plans for Western River Expedition, we can’t help but feel that the ride would still make sense and feel right at home in Magic Kingdom today; that, like Pirates, it would’ve become a staple of the park; a beloved exclusive attraction that would’ve been timeless, even as fascination with the Old West faded away… and that’s high praise, indeed.

At least for now, we can assume that Western River Expedition is out to pasture. As fans will quickly point out, Disney has more or less exited the “heavily-atmospheric, original, Animatronic-packed family dark ride” genre in favor of intellectual properties, box office connections, and thrill rides. We’re unlikely to see an IP-free ride of this caliber (or Haunted Mansion’s or Pirates’) anytime in the near future.

As before, we have to encourage you to read the comprehensive entry on Western River Expedition via Passport to Dreams, whose diligent discovery work gives us the clearest available picture of what this incredible E-Ticket would’ve actually been like. Make the jump there for an astounding look at the details and the unbelievable work of Marc Davis.

But before the story ends, we have to point out one more thing… believe it or not, the Western River Expedition isn’t the only never-built almost-masterpiece designed by Marc Davis in the ’70s… Take Davis’s signature character designs, playful vignettes, and penchant for color and shift the fiery-hued rockwork of the Old West for the musical, icy realm of the Snow Queen and voila… The subject of its own in-depth exploration and ride-through Possibilityland: The Enchanted Snow Palace would today feel like a Disneyland classic… if only it was built.

Now, we have to know what you think. Did you ever fully grasp the scope and scale of this lost project? Do you think Western River Expedition would’ve been the right path for Magic Kingdom, or were Imagineers right to bend to guests’ demands and simply provide a quick-fix version of Pirates of the Caribbean? Would you see like to see the Western River Expedition today? At the end of the day, who can say how Magic Kingdom might look different today if all of those guests all those years ago had simply not asked, “Where are the pirates?”