Although he was physically and mentally exhausted from the preparation for the opening of Disneyland (just four days after this party), Walt Disney decided to celebrate his 30th wedding anniversary at that very special location.

It was a warm July evening. After a long day of inspecting the park with his small flip notepad where he dutifully made notations of things to be changed or addressed, Walt ended his day by waiting cheerfully at the front gate to greet his guests to his new magic kingdom.

An unexpected traffic snarl had delayed some of the guests and Walt nervously smoked a cigarette or two as he impatiently waited for them to arrive. Horse-drawn surreys transported the guests down the glittering lights of the almost-completed Main Street and through the open gates of the wooden fort entrance into Frontierland. The guests were directed across the Frontierland Square to the mighty steamboat, the Mark Twain.

Admiral Joe Fowler, who was in charge of construction at Disneyland, had arrived more than an hour early to make a final inspection of the Mark Twain paddle wheeler and make sure the evening would run smoothly. The boat had never been fully tested on the river and Fowler later confessed to friends that he had had a nightmare the previous night that the artificial river bed had once again sprung a leak and gone dry.

He was taken aback to encounter a woman on deck who was frantically sweeping away at the sawdust and dirt with a broom. She handed him a broom as well and said, “This ship is filthy. Let’s get busy and sweep it up.” That woman was Walt’s wife, Lillian, and the boat was swept clean by the time the first guests got there.

It was all shiny and white and new with twinkling old-fashioned light bulbs outlining the decks. A Dixieland band played lively New Orleans-style tunes. Appropriately attired waiters wandered the decks with trays full of mint juleps.

A blast from the ship’s whistle and it gently pulled away from the dock and began its journey in the approaching dusk around the Rivers of America. There was no distraction from anything on the darkened Tom Sawyer’s Island since it would be another year before the location came to life. It was a festive mood as the boat glided effortlessly through the man made waterway transporting guests to another time and place and providing a brief preview of what people would experience in a few short days.

Walt had a couple of mint juleps to join in with the festivities and the mixture of a small amount of alcohol combined with a massive wave of tiredness and a sense of relief made him a little more playful than usual at this private party of friends and associates.

After the leisurely cruise, the guests were ushered into the interior of the nearby Golden Horseshoe Saloon designed by Imagineer Harper Goff. It was styled more as a typical turn-of-the-century Opera House than a rip-roaring Old West saloon. With its gilded wallpaper, ornate light fixtures and carved wooden accents it was a luxurious setting for the wedding anniversary celebration.

The event included dinner and the cutting of a four-tiered cake as Walt and Lillian’s two daughters, Diane and Sharon, smiled broadly near their parents.

“Mother and dad were not seated up in the balcony box, but down with their guests,” Diane wrote to me recently. “Dad was so happy, and roamed around the room, which the photos indicate. All the invited guests were people he and mother liked. Everyone enjoyed him, and vice versa. I had come down from Monterrey for the event, with our infant son, Chris. Ron was in the Army stationed at Fort Ord. Mother had bought my dress. As I told you, everyone, my parents and their guests, were sitting at tables awaiting dinner and the show. I forget which came first. Dad was circulating throughout the room, greeting and schmoozing with his guests, which were all people he liked, longtime friends and family.”