Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph courtesy of Steve Tickes

Walt Disney, who once swapped railroad ideas with Los Gatos' own Billy Jones, had this barn built on his Southern California estate to remind him of his Missouri childhood.

Picture from the Past

John S. Baggerly

Mickey Mouse's father was nostalgic for barn

For the occasional reader, last week's Picture of the Past showed Los Gatos' best known railroader, Billy Jones, visiting with the late Walt Disney at Disney's Southern California estate.

Disney, inventor of Mickey Mouse and creator of the original Disneyland in Anaheim, left an empire of cartoon movies and theme parks worldwide. Jones, a local engineer, is remembered for his little railroad, which today runs from Oak Meadow Park and into the adjoining Lake Vasona County Park.

This writer mentioned last week that Walter Elias Disney spent part of his childhood on a farm in Missouri, where he played in and around a red barn. Disney later built a duplicate of that barn on his Southern California estate.

Disney's family was too poor to buy pencils and paper, so young Walt resorted to a sharp stick and tar to paint figures on the outer walls of the barn and on his home.

At age 7, Disney sold drawings to neighbors. When his family moved to Chicago, he took up a paper route and became infatuated with comic strips.

He sold sketches to neighbors in Chicago, too. At that city's McKinley High School, he divided his attention between drawing, photography and contributing to the school paper. At night he attended an academy of fine arts.

During the fall of 1918, with World War I under way, Disney attempted to enlist for military service and hoped to serve in France. Rejected at age 16, he joined the Red Cross and was sent overseas, where he spent a year driving an ambulance. His ambulance was covered not with stock camouflage, but with Disney cartoons.

After the war, Disney returned to Missouri and became an advertising cartoonist in Kansas City. In 1920 he created and sold his first animated cartoons and later perfected a new method for live action and animation.

In August 1923, Disney left Kansas City for Hollywood with $40, a well-worn suit and an animated fairy tale subject. His brother, Roy O. Disney, was already in California, ready with sympathy and $250. Pooling their resources and a borrowed $500, they set up shop in their uncle's garage. That might sound familiar to Santa Clara Valley parents whose garages were taken over by soon-to-be high-tech millionaires or budding musicians.

In his youth, Disney walked past an amusement park and--penniless, standing outside--listened to the music and watched people have fun. He had no way of knowing that he would eventually become rich and open Disneyland, often called "The Happiest Place on Earth." He died in 1966 at the age of 65, five years before his second theme park, Disney World, opened in Orlando.

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