Disney World Has Its Own Government | Case File #57

Disney World was originally supposed to be a futuristic city, but it still has its own creepy corporate government. In the mid-1960s, Walt Disney was bored with his animation studio and frustrated and dissatisfied with the creative freedom he had with the 160 acre Disneyland theme park he had just built a few years prior. So he set his sights on something bigger. He was going to buy up a massive plot of land in Central Florida and build a private, corporately-owned city of the future called EPCOT. It's was going to be home to 65,000 people, with tons of businesses, jobs, schools, and factories, and it was going to set a technological examples for every other American city that was 25 years in the future. But before they could build this city, they needed to convince the Florida State government to grant them their own self-contained governmental powers. And though Walt's city of the future was doomed to never come to pass, the journey of Disney World from idea to becoming a resort city roughly the size of San Francisco and with the same governing powers as the Vatican was wild...and ended with murder? On this episode of Deep Cuts we explore the crazy story of how Disney World became its own government. -- Get the official Deep Cuts shoulder patch! http://bit.ly/deepcuts_patch -- Listen to our new album, a 9 song rock opera about the rise and fall of Napster! https://open.spotify.com/album/63C5uu1tkzZ2FhfsrSSf5s?si=q4WItoNmRUeM159TxKLWew -- Additional incidental music credits: The Deadboy Detectives Dadbeats http://bit.ly/FoodFightPod D.Catalano's music used with permission of Fivese7encollective https://wekeepoddhours.bandcamp.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices