May 18, 2007: Fort Wilderness on Tom Sawyer Island

[FREQDUDE]

Fort Wilderness always held a special place in my Disney memories. As a pre-teen my best friend and I both had paper routes ( remember "paperboys"?). We would collect our monthly fees and take off to Disneyland at least once every other month. TSI would be one of our first destinations. Playing "ditch" with each other and spending lots of time exploring the island and fort was one of the highlights of each trip. Remember the apple juice and dill pickles available inside the fort? The scenes in the fort of Davy Crockett and George Russell led me to a great interest in the exploration of the west andhave written many papers on the subject,and to find out that Mr. Russell is a distant relative.

As an adult, I have taken the kids there numerous times and let 'em loose to play like I did when I was their age. They sure miss the fort and being able to "shoot" the passengers on the Columbia as they pretended they were pirates. Slightly prophetic, isn't it?

I just hope the hype and the hoopla around the pirates has the lasting effect on our kids now as the history of our country and it's literature ( my kids know who Mark Twain was and about his stories) as it did on us.

Just a melancholy old man with his memories, what can I say?

[Tomorrowland67]

I'm going to miss Fort Wilderness. I kept hoping that it would be rebuilt.

Now that I think about it, I miss the original Tom Sawyer's Island.

[BassBone]

Originally Posted by Barbossa

I could see a new fort being built, however it may look like Port Royal's fort from the pirates movies.

I've got nothing against pirates, but now that they are invading Frontierland, perhaps the whole land should be renamed to Historyland.

Or perhaps Yesterdayland?

Or Yesterland? ;-)

[Athlonacon]

An attraction that references the "War of 1812" plus educates children about their country's past and allows them to use their imagination!? No wonder they had to tear it down, those things have no place in our politically correct society! We must spoon-feed kids entertainment and give them rehashed plots with attractions based off movies. That way we can get through by doing the least amount of work possible. Our past is foreign to kids...we never fought any wars, we simply politely asked the Dutch, French, English, Spanish, and most importantly the American Indians if they'd kindly give up their land to us. Wars are politically incorrect and therefore should not be referenced in anything kids can see. God forbid we actually educate them about the way America was formed.

Anyway, great article as usual. And Disneyland loses yet another treasured attraction and becomes more generic. It's starting to look more and more like Rasulo's "vision" every year...in his mind it's simply "Disney Park #01".

[NWRREngineer]

I never went in once. Don't have a good reason why I missed it every time I visited, but I'm vastly disappointed to know I'll never get a chance to see it now.

[speederscout]

This is the saddest thing I've heard since CM Matt left. I've missed going in that fort ever since they closed it. It breaks my heart to know I'll never get to experience it again, and that my neices and nephews won't have the priviledge to explore and play in it as we did...

TDA, I hope you're reading this.

[PanTheMan]

The Pirates "Fad" will come and go. There already is some backlash. I myself am a bit burned out on Pirates being shoved at us.

TSI and Fort Wilderness was part of Frontierland, now with the addition of Pirates, and the subtraction of FW and the Tom and Huck theme, it has become more a part of New Orleans Square.

The Frontier and the Wilderness was something Walt Disney Himself was very big on. New Orleans, not so much.

Sad news indeed. A decision TDA will likely regret based on a trend.

[Rhen]

When I live in LA, my parents took me to Disney Land every christmas starting when I was two. When I really remember Fort Wilderness was after my brother was born, and was about 6, and I was 10. My dad would chase us all over all over Tom Sawyer Island and we would always end up there, shooting each other, alwasy in the middle of some old western. That was 1999, the last time I ever saw Fort Wilderness. Now, 8 year later, I find myself missing that simple pleasure of being lost in another world. Very few places, even in Disney Land can give you that. I will always miss the Fort, I have wonderful memories to grow old with.

[Rhen]

Originally Posted by Barbossa

I could see a new fort being built, however it may look like Port Royal's fort from the pirates movies.

I've got nothing against pirates, but now that they are invading Frontierland, perhaps the whole land should be renamed to Historyland.

I will not lie, I want the piarates out of Frontierland and Jonny Dep out of Pirates of the Carribean. I do not like the second movie and did not bother to see the third, but Pirates of the Carribean has been second only to Space Mountain and I don't like the fact that it has been changed to fit the movies, especially adding Jonny Dep. I want to be able to go through Disney Land one day with my kids and not have to tell them that the movies were based off the ride, not the other way around. I don't want to say "That island used to be Tom Sawyer Island, which was based of a classic novel."

[Jungle_jon]

Ahhh, the Fort, I will miss it. I played in it as a kid and worked in it during the mid 70's (Also the Shack across from the River Boat Landing) I remember when they closed the secret passage allegedly to stop people from gashing their heads on the concrete dirt in the darkness. It seems a shame to loose it. It was also a great place to get one of those giant dill pickles, yummmm... They had a real bad rat problem, and protecting the food from the vermin was always a problem (they loved the Frito's). We ended up throwing a lot of food away from the store room. Ahhh, the stories I could tell… LOL

[STODD]

I'll avoid the whole political discussion of the invasion of Pirates into Disney, with one exception.
Disney is our kid's Disney now - not ours.
The harsh reality of growing up in that park for some of us.

I lived in Fountain Valley for much of my childhood and Disney was a bike ride away. My pals and I would go every chance we got. The saved up ticket books in the kitchen junk drawer was our salvation to an eventful day! Anyone remember 7 dollar admission?!

TSI and the fort were pure fun because alot of people would not come out to the island(I suspect because hitting rides was so much more "important"). We would have a blast. And ditch was our favorite game as well. It does sadden me to learn that it is now another peice of history that I cannot revisit but nothing is forever. I will cherish all the fun times I had there and retell those times anytime I have willing ears.