Main Street USA in Disneyland

In this video, the fine folks at the TheCoasterViews take us on a walk through the front gates of Disneyland to Main Street and then all the way down to the Jolly Holiday Bakery Café and Sleeping Beauty's Castle at the Hub in the center of Disneyland.

You can tell that this video was shot at Halloween Time because of all the pumpkins and other holiday decorations. Plus, people are lining the streets, so it seems that the parade will be starting soon!

Inspired by Walt Disney's hometown of Marceline, Missouri (as in the film Lady and the Tramp), Main Street, U.S.A. is designed to resemble the center of a turn-of-the-20th-century (c. 1910) American town. According to Harper Goff, who worked on Main Street, U.S.A. with Walt, he showed Walt some photos of his childhood home of Fort Collins, Colorado. Walt liked the look, and so many of the features of the town were incorporated into Main Street, U.S.A.

Walt Disney said, "For those of us who remember the carefree time it recreates, Main Street will bring back happy memories. For younger visitors, it is an adventure in turning back the calendar to the days of their grandfather's youth." Above the firehouse at Disneyland is Walt Disney's personal apartment, fully furnished but off-limits to the public, except by special tour. A lamp is kept burning in the front window as a tribute to his memory; at Christmas a small tannenbaum replaces the lamp. It is largely decorated for both Halloween and Christmas.

There is a 60-foot-tall (18 m) Christmas tree during Christmas Time, and there is a 16-foot-high (4.9 m) Mickey Mouse jack-o-lantern on Halloween Time, with additional pumpkin ears. In the circular Hub in front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle, the bronze "Partners" statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse is surrounded by smaller bronzes of familiar Disney characters, such as Donald Duck and the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.

In Town Square is the oldest building in Disneyland, the Main Street Opera House. It formerly served as the park's lumber mill between 1955 and 1961. The cannons that are displayed in the center of the square were used by the French army during the 1800s, although they were never fired in battle. The gas lamps that line the street originally came from Baltimore and were bought for $.03 a pound.

"Partners" was sculpted by Blaine Gibson and was added in 1993. During the Halloween season, pumpkin busts for each themed land in the park, except Main Street, are seen around "Partners." It is listed as a real street in the Orange County Thomas Guide.
~ Wikipedia