Today's images show Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland in Anaheim. The first (above) is a concept sketch from the early 1950s by Disney artist Herb Ryman. The second image (courtesy of Daveland) shows the castle as it appeared in the 1950s.
The third image (below) was taken just last year. The castle's design draws from several sources, but most heavily from the spectacular Castle Neuschwanstein in Bavaria. The Disneyland version, however, is only 77 feet high, using forced perspective to appear taller. It is also Orange County's best known building.
In other Disneyland historical news, the long-awaited Jason's Disneyland Almanac is now available for sale. For the curious, Jason Schultz has posted the preface of his almanac on his Disneyland Nomenclature blog. You may also be interested to know that Jason works for the National Archives & Records Administration at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda. (He recently posted about how his work on the Disneyland almanac led to a new labeling system for the papers of President Richard Nixon.)
Also of interest to Disneyland history fans, the Register recently reported that Ward Kimball's grandson, Nate Lord, is now working as an engineer on the Disneyland Railroad. Kimball was one of Disney's most talented animators, (among many other talents), and was also the man who got Walt Disney hooked on model and backyard railroads. Walt's passion for having progressively better and larger toy railroads led to a theme park for the trains to run around. As it happens, the newest of the trains on that railroad is called the Ward Kimball.