One of the most important drawings in Disney history will be auctioned off on June 25 at Van Eaton Galleries in Sherman Oaks, Calif.
The item is a hand-drawn map that Walt Disney and a friend, Herb Ryman, created over one rushed weekend in September 1953 as part of a frantic effort to secure funding to build Disneyland.
It could get between $750,000 and $1 million!
On the map, you can see areas of Disneyland that would never materialize (“Lilliputian Land”), many that would (a perimeter train ride, a frontier section) and some that eventually took a very different form (the fairy-tale castle was originally positioned in a corner instead of the center). A pencil-and-ink drawing on paper, the map is roughly three feet by five feet.