Happy 35th anniversary Epcot!
The Walt Disney World theme park opened October 1, 1982.
To celebrate, the resort is offering special “I was there” merchandise, treats, commemorative guide maps, buttons and entertainment.
Known as EPCOT Center when it debuted, Epcot was the second Disney theme park to open in Florida.
The park’s name derived from an acronym of the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.
But the park was not the model community of the future Walt Disney originally envisioned.
Epcot was conceived as a prototype city, one that would be a blueprint for city planning and development.
“It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and new systems,” Walt Disney said.
Twenty thousand people would live and work in the prototype community.
The city would be enclosed in a climate-controlled dome, where residents would be protected from “rain, heat and cold and humidity.”
It would consist of businesses surrounded by high-density apartment housing, recreational areas and residential neighborhoods. The city would also have shopping areas, a hotel and convention center, restaurants and theaters.
Transportation would flow through the city on three different levels: one for supply trucks, one for cars and one for the monorail-like system.
After Walt Disney’s death, the project was re-envisioned as a theme park with tech-focused pavilions in Future World and countries in World Showcase.
Disney World recently released “The Dream Called Epcot,” a 15-minute long promo video from 1980.
The video was played in the EPCOT Preview Center at Magic Kingdom and provided guests a behind-the-scenes look at the park's development.
Watch the video below: