Elias Disney was a contractor. Among other things, he helped build the White City, the famous Chicago World’s Columbian Exhibition. Apparently, he told those stories to his children. He also told them stories about building the Union Pacific line. He never much connected with his fourth child—for one thing, he didn’t consider art to be a real job—but obviously, he was still important to the boy. And when young Walter grew up, he paid tribute to his father in a way that has become traditional in the parks that bear the family name.

It’s most noticeable on Main Street, USA, of course. That area of the various parks is intended to bring to mind, among other things, the town of Marceline, Missouri, where the Disney family spent part of Walt’s childhood. As was typical for towns of the time and place, the windows there have various names painted on them representing the assorted people who supposedly had offices there. Walt himself arranged for the tribute to his father; in the days since then, many other people associated with the park have had similar tributes paid to them.

I’ll be honest; I didn’t really notice them in the days when I was still a regular Disneyland visitor. My familiarity with the ins and outs of park dates to the time when I stopped being able to go much. I didn’t look at details when I was a kid. Being at Disneyland was enough. And the first trip back as an adult, I knew to look for Hidden Mickeys but still not much past that. Now, though, one of the reasons I’d like to go back is to see them for myself.

Not all the tributes are on Main Street, though. I seem to remember noticing some in Adventureland, last time I was there. And in Walt Disney World, the newer monuments in the graveyard around the Haunted Mansion pay tribute to people without whom the Mansion would be very different. Indeed, one of them at least has shaped more of Disney history than I think most people realize, as his voice is one you’ll find everywhere.

Obviously, I have not been able to acquire quite the list of new pictures for this article as I would have liked. However, I have been planning it for some months with the help of Anthony Pizzo, my Walt Disney World correspondent. All photographs here are his, and I’m extremely grateful to him for them. His photography on Instagram is well worth seeing; his eye for the Disney parks is quite frankly one the Disney people could do worse than to pay him for. In fact, he’s my sounding-board for a lot of my Disney articles, and the Byways wouldn’t be the same without him.

Obviously, this is Walt’s nephew Roy, son of the Roy who co-founded the company with Walt.

Collin Campbell was an artist for the company, creating sets for the Mickey Mouse Club among other things, who went on to be an Imagineer and designed the Enchanted Tiki Room as his first project, designing many other things in his time with Disney.  Herbert Ryman did the original sketches of what would eventually become Disneyland.  Blaine Gibson was another animator-turned-Imagineer who sculpted hundreds of the Audio-Animatronic figures and also created the iconic Partners statue.  Mary Blair, we have talked about many times; her artistic style is unmistakable and is all over Disney.  Dorothea Redmond, well, here’s her Attention Must Be Paid.

Frank Wells was a president of the Walt Disney Company who lacked only Everest in his attempt to climb the Seven Summits, and that only because of weather.  He was killed in a helicopter crash after a skiing weekend with Clint Eastwood.

Donn Tatum, the first non-family member to be president of the company, was among the people who helped create Walt Disney World and its assorted parks; the subsidiaries listed on the other window are company names under which Disney bought the land that would become the park, when Walt was trying to keep it a secret to keep land prices there from skyrocketing.

Ken Anderson was a little bit of everything.  His degree was in architecture, and he did some of that for Disney.  Also some writing, some animating, some production design.  And did some of the original sketches for what would become the Haunted Mansion; this tribute, of course, is in its graveyard.

And, of course, Paul Frees.  The Ghost Host himself, hence his Mansion tribute.  But just about anywhere in the parks would have been appropriate, given his work for Disney.

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