In the 1960s my parents, Charlie and Martha, loaded my brother Jeff and I into a station wagon with a rear-facing seat and drove Route 66 to California’s Disneyland. The park was eight years old when we arrived–coincidentally, the same age I was.
Along the Mother Road, Dad scrambled eggs and fried potted meat along the road from a cast iron skillet. Upon arrival and Disneyland’s magic filled me with memories which persist to this day. The Rocket Ride into outer space, and the river boat ride were key attractions I enjoyed, as well as Thunder Mountain, a mining roller coaster in Frontierland.
So during the Winter of 2024, as our family travelled to the other Disney’s Magic Kingdom, I broke away from the grandkids to collect a few new memories in a simple wooden box loaded with color film. Standing again in front of Frontierland, I walked a few steps and took three overlapping images which became my most successful photograph. The in-camera montage has been exhibited at the Walton Art Center, the Spiva Art Center, and juror Jill Enfield placed the work into the Krappy Kamera show at SOHO Photo Gallery in Chelsea, NYC. During the Spring of 2025, the photograph was also exhibited in Kyiv, Ukraine as a juried entry to the Pavlovka Pinhole Fest’2025: Forms of Memory, curated by @Юлия Геннадиевна.
Thankfully after 50+ years, Frontierland is scheduled for demolition in 2026, which will remove its underlying message of manifest destiny. As one of the original themed lands, Frontierland once hosted a burning settler’s cabin, the Westward Ho Trading Post, a Shootin’ Arcade, and even an Aunt Jemima’s restaurant. Historically a tableau for every imaginable trope or stereotype, perhaps my dystopian depiction aptly captures Frontierland’s demise.
Now, If only I could rightsize my memories of crossing the frontier by station wagon, and bring back the magic.
