Animal Kingdom opened 23 years ago today so we pass along birthday greetings to the nature themed park. It is a remarkable place — many people have remarks about it.
As our look back period at Lake Buena Vista HIstorical Society loosely adheres to a “25 years or older” period of time, Animal Kingdom hasn’t gotten much attention from us (yet). However we recently acquired hundreds of Disney internal photographic slides mostly from the 1990s and there is a treasure trove of Animal Kingdom content.
Below you can find two galleries. The first is 15 rare construction photos. These slides were all marked “Legal Clearance Required” by Disney, meaning anyone supplying the images to press or publicity agencies first had to obtain the “OK” from Disney legal. There’s terrific images of the construction of the Tree of Life, many of the shops and villages and a rail gang “workin’ on the railroad” to Conservation Station.
The second gallery is a collection of other Animal Kingdom promotional images that were put on slides by Disney for internal use. It’s a new area of content for us that will expand as we inch closer to DAK’s 25th Anniversary in 2023. Some fun ones to hunt for: The computer generated promotional image for “Kali River Rapids”, the zany “Tarzan Rocks!” promo, some gorgeous shots of Tree of Life during golden hour and sunrise and our beloved short lived Discovery River Cruise boat passing by an erupting geyser.
Happy Birthday Animal Kingdom!
Cool pics..Is that one of the boats used on your last tour?? Thanks Brian for posting.