Walt wanted a castle in his Disneyland. Sounds like a rather obvious thing to say, but it bears mentioning.

The heart of Disneyland was Fantasyland, the place where the Disney animated films would come to three-dimensional life.

Since most of them were European in origin, a castle provided a quick and powerful way to signify a European feel to this land, so the earliest 1953 sketch of Disneyland by Herb Ryman included just such a castle towering over a medieval village (which was to house the rides based on movies).

Herb and Walt took inspiration from the castle of Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, one of King Ludwig II’s fairy-tale castles built during his years of madness, and at great cost to the coffers of Bavaria (it remains partly unfinished to this day).

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