The Disneyland Hotel and the Old Courthouse

Author Don Ballard was in town today, and brought with him a portion of his vast collection of old Disneyland Hotel materials. Don wrote Disneyland Hotel: The Early Years, 1954-1988, which I read, enjoyed, and briefly reviewed last year. Today, Don set up a display near the Hotel’s employee cafeteria, where “cast members” could stop to learn something about the history of the place. He was also kind enough to let me rifle through his collection and make copies of some documents for the Archives. The photo above shows Don and I (right and left, respectively) holding aloft the shovel from the Hotel’s ground-breaking, which hadn’t been on the property in 52 years. (I included an inset image to make the text legible.)

I stopped past the third floor of the Old Courthouse today and it dawned on me that I hadn’t blogged about Old Courthouse Museum’s new Historical Education & Special Events Coordinator, Carey Baughman. Some months ago, she replaced Bradley Flint, who moved out to the Key Ranch historic park. Carey has interned and volunteered for more respectable historical institutions than you can shake a stick at. Her educational background is in history, anthropology and sociology, and she’s currently working on her PhD in Native American History at UC Riverside. Glad to have her for a neighbor.