After years of planning, Walt Disney's very first theme park Disneyland debuted at 2:00 on Sunday afternoon July 17, 1955 in Anaheim, California. Television crews, Art Linkletter, Ronald Reagan, Bob Cummings, the Mouseketeers, Thurl Ravenscroft, California Governor Goodwin J. Knight and over 28,000 guests witnessed the opening of Walt's dream. Broadcast on ABC at 4:30, it was the biggest live telecast to date.
    Eighteen-year-old Bob Penfield operated the King Arthur Carousel that day - he was suppose to operate Peter Pan's Flight, but the attraction kept breaking down. Penfield went on to become the longest working Cast Member in Disneyland history!
    Charlie Ridgway, a reporter working for the Los Angeles Mirror-News was covering the opening of Disneyland on that hot July day. He later went on to work for Disney as a publicist before relocating to Orlando, Florida to run Disney's public-relations department for 30 years!
    Actor Ronald Reagan (who would later become president of the United States) introduced 53-year-old Walt Disney - "And now, Walt Disney will
step forward to read the dedication of Disneyland." Walt christened his
160-acre park with these now famous words (penned by Winston Hibler):
    The park offered 5 themed lands with a total of 18 attractions.
Disneyland opened as invitation only on this day, given to studio workers,
construction workers, the press and officials of company sponsors. (The park
opened to the general public the following day - July 18.) Because tickets to the
grand opening were counterfeited, a surprising total of 28,154 attended. The day
was marked by numerous disasters, including a traffic jam, a shortage of food, and a
gas leak in Fantasyland. Even a chunk of window from the Mark Twain Steamboat
crashed on the head of an invited state senator!
    Cast Member Ron Dominguez was working as a ticket taker at Disneyland's main gate. He would spend his entire career at the park eventually becoming a top executive (between 1971-1994). Ironically he grew up on one of the Anaheim orange groves later purchased by Disney for the theme park. The Dominguez family house was located just about where the entrance to the Pirates of the Caribbean is!
    Celebrities visiting Disneyland that day included Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis Jr., Danny Thomas, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.
July 17, 1955 is known by Disneyland old-timers as
"Black Sunday" (because of the numerous mishaps)
... yet in those first 7 weeks more than a million
people walked down Disneyland's Main Street USA!
OPENING DAY
ATTRACTIONS, SHOPS
& RESTAURANTS:
JULY 17, 1955
TOWN SQUARE
City Hall
Fire Department
Plaza Pavilion Restaurant

MAIN STREET USA
Bank of America
Camera Center
Carnation Ice Cream Parlor
Coca-Cola Refreshment Corner
Emporium
Horse-Drawn Fire Wagon
Horse-Drawn Street Cars
Horse-Drawn Surreys
Main Street Cinema
Main Street Penny Arcade
Ruggles China and Glass House
Story Book Shop
Santa Fe / Disneyland Railroad (featuring 2 engines:
#1 C.K. Holliday & #2 E.P. Ripley)
 
ADVENTURELAND
Jungle Cruise (featuring 2 boats: Ganges Gal and Congo Queen)
Red Wagon Inn
 
FRONTIERLAND
Chicken Plantation Restaurant
Davy Crockett Arcade
Frontier Trading Post
Golden Horseshoe Revue at Slue Foot Sue's Golden Horseshoe Saloon
Mark Twain Steamboat 
Mule Pack
Stage Coaches
 
FANTASYLAND
Canal Boats of the World
King Arthur Carrousel
Mad Tea Party
Merlin's Magic Shop
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
Peter Pan's Flight
Snow White's Adventures

TOMORROWLAND
Autopia
Circarama USA (presenting the film A Tour of the West)
Monsanto Hall of Chemistry
Space Station X-1

THE GRAND
OPENING OF
DISNEYLAND
Nine-year-old Bonnie Williams was an opening day guests because her church youth group was invited. She was among the first children to cross the drawbridge into Fantasyland and ride Disneyland's rides! "I remember seeing Walt," she says. "He looked like a giant. I told him, 'I saw you on TV!' The whole day was magical. I felt like a real princess."
"To all who come to this happy place: welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past...and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts which have created America ... with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world."
THIS SITE MADE
IN THE
USA
A rusty-haired 12-year-old named Tom Nabbe visited Disneyland. Tom and his mom stood outside the park's entrance seeking autographs from Hollywood stars who were visiting. They spotted entertainer Danny Thomas exiting and Tom's mom asked him for an autograph. As he signed he asked her, "Have you been in the park?" Upon learning she hadn't, Thomas gave her two extra free passes! Tom and his mom became invited guests of Danny Thomas! (Two days later, Tom landed a job as a "newsie," hawking The Disneyland News on Main Street. In 1956 Nabbe became the park's first Tom Sawyer and in 1971, became Walt Disney World's monorail manager!)
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Firehouse Five Plus Two, a Dixieland jazz band made up of Disney Studio employees and led by animator Ward Kimball, appeared at the firehouse on Main Street for the opening ceremonies.
"Walt told us to wander around the park and play wherever there was a crowd. We were
the first mobile band at Disneyland!" -Ward Kimball
Disney consultant Harrison "Buzz" Price (who a few years earlier had
chosen the then-sleepy agricultural town of Anaheim as the location for
Disneyland) attended opening day. "I was on the bridge that led to Sleeping
Beauty's Castle, and it was full of people. We couldn't move. and the asphalt
was sticky. I looked down and saw Frank Sinatra, and he was cursing."
Actor Fess Parker, famously known in 1955 as TV's Davy Crockett, led the opening-day parade dressed as the famous frontiersman. ''There were so many people I couldn't see the park!"
The Mouseketeers were first introduced to the public during the live
broadcast of the Disneyland opening day festivities. All 24 members were featured in the inaugural Main Street parade and were showcased with their very own musical production number. (Mickey Mouse Club would make its national television premiere on October 3, 1955.)
Future Disneyland President Jack Lindquist was there on opening day ... but as a guest. He was working for an ad agency and one of his clients, Kelvinator (an appliance company) invited him. "It was so overcrowded, and it was I think 105. I don’t know, but very very hot. But traffic wasn’t a problem, they had a great system of directing traffic. It came right into the parking lot, and then everything came to a halt. You had tickets that said enter at 1pm. Well, the people that had tickets that said 8am, 9am, 10am weren’t leaving. They were just adding more people going in, nobody was coming out."