Photos

Disneyland is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company. The creation of animation and entertainment pioneer Walt Disney, Disneyland has become the world's most famous themed amusement park and one of the most visited sites in the world. An estimated 515 million visitors have visited the park since its opening on July 17, 1955.
Walt Disney and his brother Roy already headed one of Hollywood's more successful studios founded in 1923 long before the idea of a park even began to form. Walt's original concept was of a permanent family fun park without the negative element which traveling carnivals often attracted. He developed the idea during his many outings with his daughters Dianne and Sharon, when he realized that there were no parks with activities that parents and children could enjoy together.
While many people had written letters to Walt Disney about visiting the Disney Studio lot and meeting their favorite Disney character, Walt realized that a functional movie studio had little to offer to the visiting fan. He then began to foster ideas of building a place at his Burbank studios for tourists to visit and perhaps take pictures with Disney characters set in statue form. His ideas then evolved to a small play park with a boat ride and other themed areas. These ideas grew bigger and bigger into a concept for a larger enterprise which was to become Disneyland.
Disneyland was partially inspired by Tivoli Gardens, built in 1843 in Copenhagen, Denmark and Children's Fairyland built in 1950 in Oakland, California. Disney's original modest plans called for the park to be built on eight acres (32,000 m²) next to the Disney Studios in Burbank, California as a place where his employees and families could go to relax.
Early in development, during the early 1950s, it became clear that more area would be needed. Difficulties in obtaining funding caused Disney to investigate new ways of raising money. He decided to use television to get the ideas into people's homes, and so he created a show named Disneyland which was broadcast on the fledgling American Broadcasting Company (ABC) television network. In return, the network agreed to help finance the new park.
Walt Disney showing the concepts of Disneylandn the suggestion of researchers at Stanford Research Institute who correctly envisioned the area's potential growth, Disney acquired 160 acres (730,000 m²) of orange groves and walnut trees in Anaheim, south of Los Angeles in neighboring Orange County. Construction began on July 18, 1954 and would cost USD$17 million to complete. U.S. Highway 101 (later Interstate 5) was under construction at the same time just to the north of the site; in preparation for the traffic which Disneyland was expected to bring, two more lanes were added to the freeway even before the park was finished.
Disneyland was opened to the public on Monday, July 18, 1955.

From Wikipedia
*Scanned image*