Our last day in Missouri was spent in Marceline a small Midwest town, population of a little over 2,000 people and is about 3.5 square miles.  Of course, this was Lorraine’s bucket-list item for our trip.

We headed out from Kansas City with 3.5 -hour drive to Marceline in the morning.  We arrived early afternoon and went right to Walt Disney Hometown Museum.  The museum is over 10,000sq feet, 2-story restored Santa Fe Railway Depot with over 4,000 memorabilia/artifacts from the Disney Family with personal family letters and photos.  The museum also shared the life of the Disney Family while in Marceline as well as how they ended up there traveling from Chicago when Walt was about 4 years old.  We now know why trains were one of Walt’s favorite things, many items dedicated to the Santa Fe Railway within the museum as well.  Walt’s Uncle Mike worked for railroad and Walt would ride the rails with him.  When he married and moved to Los Angeles he built a miniature railroad in his yard for children, even before Disneyland was in his plans.

Part 1 – Museum front, ticket window for the Santa Fe Train as well as Mickey Clocks with the time of all Disney Parks & Resorts(top: Disneyland, Marceline, Walt Disney World; bottom: Tokyo Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland, Shanghai Disneyland, Disneyland Paris & Aulani)  In the middle is Marceline Midget – Autopia.  This was a gift from Disneyland to Marceline when they removed it from Disneyland California.  It was built in downtown Marceline for children to enjoy, but in the late 70’s it was removed because of insurance purposes. 

Part 2 – Limited-edition Disney bike that a family restored and donated to the museum.  In 2004, the USPS was dedicated to Walt and renamed as “Walt Disney Post Office”.  Walt attended the Park School at age 7, these are the original desks from the school.  The bottom picture is a painting that was dedicated to the museum, in front of that is miniature replica of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in Disneyland and in front of that is a miniature replica of the entrance to Disneyland. 

Part 3 – Main St. USA.  The hometown street that Walt got his inspiration for Main Street USA Disneyland and WDW.  We enjoyed a quick lunch at Ma Vic’s Corner Café and a sample of Marceline’s famous dessert “The Dusty Miller”.  If you can’t read the picture of the story of the dessert, google it it’s very interesting. Some pictures of Main Street and the Santa Fe RR Disneyland.

Part 4 – we drove a few miles out of town to the Disney Family Farm.  The farm had to be sold after 5 years of living there due to Walt’s father’s illness and the family moved to Kansas City.  The current owner of the farm kept the Disney magic alive on the farm, with the help of the Museum.

The original cottonwood “dreaming tree” where Walt would lay under and draw and imagine stories as a child fell in 2015 during a storm.  However, in 2004 before the original tree fell “the son of the dreaming tree” was planted from a sapling from the original tree by Walt’s grandson Bradford.  The soil from Magic Kingdom and water from the Rivers of America were mixed with soil from the farm in a planting ceremony.

At the end of the walkway is Walt’s Barn built by volunteers in 2001 to celebrate Walt’s 100^th birthday.  It was constructed using blueprints he had for a workshop he built at his California home years before.  There are many signatures of visitors within the barn, they encourage you to leave a note to Walt and Roy, and of course I did.  At the corner of the property is the original Disney Family Farmhouse.  The 1906 home still is the original layout, however in the 1980’s the current owner built an addition to the home and kept the original look of the home while doing so.

Our hotel room was furnished with Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge items. All the rooms at the hotel are themed rooms, when they do refurbishments on rooms at Disney they sell the old fixtures.

Later that evening after a stop at a small local bar for a bit to eat we ended the night at the movie theatre to see The Little Mermaid.  Perfect Disney Day for Lorraine, not so much for Mike!