Disney landscapers lower the Liberty Oak into place in Liberty Square in 1971. Among the crew are Scott Girard (to the left, in orange shirt), Charlie Sepulveda (the yellow shirt, center), and Bill Evans (the mint green shirt, far right).
Today! The Progress City Radio Hour presents part one of our Town Hall with veteran Disney landscaper and horticulturalist Scott Girard. Scott has had a fascinating career, beginning at Disneyland in 1964 and carrying on through the creation of Walt Disney World to Epcot Center, Tokyo Disneyland, and beyond. Along the way he worked with and encountered a roster of legends including Walt and Roy Disney themselves. In part one we discuss his childhood growing up near the Disneyland construction site and stories from his time working on the Disneyland Railroad and monorails. We also cover his contributions to the landscape design of Walt Disney World, including feats such as the moving of the Liberty Oak (shown above). Listen at Podbean or via your favorite podcast outlets!
Also please take note that our next Patreon livestream will be held this Saturday, the 14th, and that we will be having a special public livestream this month as well on August 28th! We hope to see you there.
The Progress City Radio Hour picks up our fife and drum for another celebration of the Fourth of July! In this patriotic episode we’ll look back at how Disney parks celebrated the Bicentennial, and examine some very early concepts for Epcot’s American Adventure. We’ll also walk you through a lengthy televised spectacle of Americana from 1991.
In addition, this episode marks the one year anniversary of our return to podcasting, and we’d really like to thank everyone who has joined in on the fun – especially those who have helped make it happen by joining our Patreon! We really do appreciate you all, and we have lots more fun planned for the year ahead.
But for now, we hope you enjoy the episode – strike up the band, it’s the Progress City Radio Hour!
Yet again, Jeff has provided a list of some of the music cues played in this episode on Twitter. In addition, he has made a fun Spotify playlist of some of the music drops from our last year of programs. Check it out here!
Also, during the show Jeff mentions some pretty amazing plans for a 1976 Bicentennial Exposition in Boston that never happened – check out more information about that project here.
As we say on the podcast, we’re taking August off in an effort to get ahead of things, but there are still a few treats to be had. We’re planning a public livestream event on YouTube for some time in August, so stay tuned to these channels for more information about that. And as always we’ll be having our Patreon-exclusive livestream at the end of July. We hope to see you there!
If you’re still reading this site, you probably know that I’ve been pretty active over on Twitter for the last decade. I’ve posted a ton of old images and historical tidbits over there, but amid all the other tweets and silliness I’ve worried that the real historical content has gotten lost down the bottomless memory hole. So to rectify this I’ve started a brand new Instagram account for Progress City, where I can keep and curate historical images and they’ll hopefully be more easy to find. It also allows me to post longer historical pieces than I can fit onto Twitter, but which don’t really warrant their own full lengthy post here. Think of it as kind of the mid-sized historical option. Join us, won’t you?
The Progress City Radio Hour sets sail down the mighty Mississippi for more wild west excitement in Frontierland! In part two of this month’s episode we look at how Mark Twain influenced Walt Disney’s youth. We’ll also look at Frontierland dining options from Disneyland’s past, hear a catchy ditty about Nature’s Wonderland, and continue our retrospective tour of Walt Disney World’s Frontierland! History, music, and more – send down another bag of golden corn, Klondike, it’s the Progress City Radio Hour!
Jeff has provided a list of the music drops in this episode in this thread on Twitter. In addition, he has made a Spotify playlist with selected titles from the episode here.
In response to our request in the last episode for Disney book recommendations, listener Ellen sent an incredibly comprehensive list of recommended books for the informed fan. You can check out the list here. Thanks again, Ellen!
As a reminder, silver-level Patreon members can join us this Saturday, the 26th, for our monthly Progress City livestream! This month we’ll be talking Frontierland, with lots of vintage photos and video. We hope to see you there!
That’s it for this month – see you in July with more about past Disney patriotic celebrations!
Another month means another wave of Progress City Radio Hour episodes! This month we head off into the wilderness with a wide range of frontier discussion and yet another interview with a veteran theme park designer.
First comes our Wilderness episode. Here we grab our musket and coonskin cap and head off into a wild frontier of adventure. We chat about the life and lore of Davy Crockett, take a visit to Frontierland circa 1956, go on a trip through Marc Davis’s unbuilt Fort Wilderness attraction Adventure House, have a stop at Trail’s End, and hear a bit about a never-built Frontierland attraction at Disneyland. There’s also the debut of our exciting new entertainment innovation, The Progress City Players!
Then we have our second Progress City Town Hall with veteran designer and former Imagineer Bob Baranick. Bob takes us from his days before Disney working on regional attractions such as the Six Flags Power Plant through his time as a model builder for Disneyland Paris’s Phantom Manor and beyond. You’ll hear tales of his stint as an art director at Disneyland, including many unbuilt attractions from the “Disney Decade” as well as legendary experiences such as the Indiana Jones Adventure.
We hope you enjoy this month’s episodes and come back from the frontier ready for next month’s slate, where we’ll begin a two-part exploration of the groundbreaking 1980 theme park soundtrack, The Official Album of Disneyland and Walt Disney World!
From the Progress City archives comes this collection of 33 tall tales and true from Disney history. Available in paperback, hardback, and ebook formats.
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