Disney Imagineers share 3 focuses for new Frontierland attractions at Magic Kingdom
Frontierland at Magic Kingdom is dramatically changing, and Disney Imagineers have three key focuses for the makeover.
Artists from Walt Disney Imagineering shared with Attractions Magazine several guiding principles for the Frontierland project, currently ongoing at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom near Orlando, Fla.
According to Imagineers, Frontierland’s recent and upcoming attractions emphasize:
- chasing your dreams
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- writing your own folk tale
and embrace a key creative focus: the setting isn’t the story.
Imagineers compared these points to the often-publicized rubric, per se, for Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park. (In developing new attractions for Animal Kingdom, Imagineers are guided by three principles: the intrinsic value of nature, psychological transformation through adventure, and a personal call to action.) A similar intentionality of language is at work in the points Imagineers shared about their focus for Frontierland’s big-picture vision. The values they shared aren’t simply off-the-cuff goals; they are intentional, strategic priorities of the project.
Artwork courtesy of Disney
As previously announced, Tom Sawyer Island and the Rivers of America (including the Liberty Belle Riverboat) are permanently closing, to be replaced by two new rides themed to Pixar’s “Cars” and a major overhaul of Frontierland’s overall landscaping. Additionally, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is closed for the entirety of 2025, to reopen in 2026. These projects follow 2024’s new version of the long-running Country Bear Jamboree as well as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure replacing Splash Mountain.
Photo by Blake Taylor
History of Frontierland
Like the other five lands of Magic Kingdom, Frontierland opened with Walt Disney World’s original theme park in 1971. Its California counterpart preceded it, opening with Disneyland in 1955 as a reflection of a pop-culture obsession at the time.
“Old West fever peaked during the construction of Disneyland — no doubt shaping some of Walt’s plans,” according to author Chris Nichols. “The celebration of the brave frontiersman was the predominant theme, and the ‘King of the Wild Frontier’ was Davy Crockett.” 1
Photo courtesy of Disney
Disney’s Davy Crockett television episodes were strategically designed to represent Frontierland in the “Disneyland” ABC series around the time of Disneyland the park’s grand opening — the first cross-platform synergy push between a studio and a theme park. Integrating intellectual property (IP) into Disney theme parks has been a constant since day 1. That push for IP in Frontierland continued with the opening of Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland in 1956 and at Magic Kingdom in 1973, integrating “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain into the parks.
In adapting Frontierland with IP familiar to today’s audiences, Imagineers aren’t just swapping out old characters with new faces, but also taking the opportunity to evolve what Frontierland means and the purpose it serves for the broader Magic Kingdom as a whole.
“Frontierland is probably the most distinctly American statement in the Magic Kingdom,” wrote author Jeff Kurtti, “a tribute to the pioneer spirit that moves Americans westward from the 1770s to the 1880s.” 2
To this end, Tiana is the one of the only two American characters in the Disney Princess roster (the other being Pocahontas), and the majority of Pixar’s “Cars” series makes a point of showing off the vistas of untamed U.S. wilderness.
Photo by Olga Thompson / Disney
The architecture of the original Frontierland thoroughfare, as explored starting from Liberty Square and continuing on, represented a journey not only from the east to west coasts of the U.S., but also through time, with the buildings’ styles spanning a progression from 1790-1880. 3 This symbolism was maintained with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad when that coaster opened in 1980, but was disrupted by Splash Mountain in 1992. With Tiana’s Bayou Adventure taking place in 1927 New Orleans and the upcoming “Cars” attractions taking place in the present-day Rockies, the geographical and chronological continuity further strays from the original Frontierland, but the symbolism remains along the main strip from Liberty Square through Pecos Bill’s Tall Tale Inn & Café.
Holistically, the recent and upcoming Frontierland changes transition the land away from its representation of a “retreat into a mythical and romanticized version of the great American West”4 and into an evolved maturation of its former focus, instead emphasizing chasing your dreams and writing your own folk tale.
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Literature Citations
- “Walt Disney’s Disneyland” by Chris Nichols (2018), page 105. ↩︎
- “Since the World Began: Walt Disney World – The First 25 Years” by Jeff Kurtti (1996), page 52. ↩︎
- “The Imagineering Field Guide to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World: An Imagineer’s-Eye Tour” by Alex Wright (2005), page 52. ↩︎
- “Portrait of Walt Disney World: 50 Years of the Most Magical Place on Earth” by Kevin M. Kern, Tim O’Day, and Steven Vagnini (2021), page 109. ↩︎
“The setting isn’t the story” THIS IS A THEME PARK!!!!!