The American frontier consisted of gunfighters, cow-boys and Indians, dusty desert towns and cattle drives ... at least this is today's popularized Old West based on countless images from movies and television. When Walt Disney and his creative team first defined Frontier-land at Disneyland, they worked with an earlier and more comprehensive concept of "the West" of the mid-1800's. In addition to the Conestoga wagons and the Golden Horseshoe Saloon, Walt included the storybook frontier of his own youth as told by American author Samuel Clemens. Central to Disney's Frontierland were river rafts named Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher, places to explore like Injun Joe's Cave, Tom Sawyer Island, and of course, the pride of the Rivers of America fleet ... the Mark Twain riverboat. […]
