Disneyland's First Guide Book

1955 - Disneyland is now open for business and we have the very first Guide Book. It's really more of a pamphlet than a book - coming in at only 16 pages. Produced by Western Printing & Lithographing Company. These are the same folks who brought us early editions of the Little Golden Books.
The look and feel of this Guide Book is reminiscent of the Little Golden Books as it uses pencil sketches and water color drawings. Compare the picture included above with the same scene depicted on this Disneyland postcard. Walt Disney actually apologizes in the introduction for the use of "artist renderings" in this book.

The book is divided into sections, just like every Guide Book that will come after it, into the five original lands in Disneyland. The back of the book features a very difficult to use grid map to the Park. (Let's see, Dumbo is located in section C-E6. Section C is Fantasyland and finding E6 on the map puts Dumbo right next to...a lot of nothing). This type of mapping strategy would be abandoned quickly.

Coming attractions features the Disneyland Hotel. ("This distinctive 650-room resort Hotel and Motor Hotel offers every type of accommodation from comfortable motel units to luxurious garden apartments.")

I've now added a section on my web site that includes all of the Disneyland Guide Books (well, almost all of them - I'm missing a couple) with side by side comparisons.