June 15 - Bill Martin

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On this day, in 1917, Wilson E. Martin was born in Marshalltown, Iowa. Bill, as he was known, and his family moved to Los Angeles, California when he was still pretty young. After high school, he went to Los Angeles Junior College and then on to the Chouinard Art Institute to study architecture. Following his graduation from Chouinard, Bill got a job as a set designer for 20^th Century Fox in 1940. His career was interrupted by World War II, which he spent in the United States Air Force as a bombardier trainer. Following the war, Bill worked for a company called Panoramic Productions before returning to Fox, this time as an assistant art director. Then, in 1953, he got an offer he couldn’t refuse.

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While working at Fox, Bill got a phone call. Someone from the Walt Disney Studio was wondering if he would like to switch companies. Disney was looking for new talent to become part of a group of employees referred to as Imagineers, was he interested? Bill jumped at the chance and became part of the team working to make Walt’s Disneyland dreams come true. One of his first assignments was to travel around to existing amusement parks to study existing systems and figure out what was working and, more importantly, what wasn’t. Then it was back to Burbank for massive brainstorming sessions.

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Bill would be the first to admit that not all of his ideas were great ones. Take, for example, the corset shop he dreamed up for Main Street USA called The Wizard of Bras. Obviously that particular shop never made it past the idea phase, but it was that kind of creative thinking that convinced Walt to make Bill the art director for Fantasyland. As a result, he was integral in shaping the design of everything in the area, attractions like Sleeping Beauty’s Castle and Peter Pan’s Flight, as well as the land’s general layout and look. Once Disneyland was opened, Bill would move on to other projects in the ever expanding park. He helped design the Autopias, Bear Country, the monorail system and New Orleans Square including both its signature attractions, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion.

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By 1971, Bill had become the Vice President of Design at WED Enterprises (now called Walt Disney Imagineering). He was the man in charge of the master layout for the company’s newest theme park endeavor, the Magic Kingdom of Walt Disney World. Bill’s personal design projects included the famous utilidors (the ‘tunnels’ underneath most of the Magic Kingdom’s guest areas), Cinderella Castle, Main Street USA (still no corset shop though) and the system of canals which connect various areas of the entire Florida property. As if that wasn’t enough, he also designed a wide array of watercraft that was going to be used in those canals, including the large ferry boats that run between the Magic Kingdom and the Transportation and Ticket Center and various smaller steam launches and side wheelers.

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Bill officially retired from Disney in 1977, but, like so many of the influencers of that era, he didn’t simply walk away. He continued to keep his hand in the theme park creation business, just on a consultation only basis. His influence can be experienced in the Mexico and Italy pavilions at Epcot and the master layout for Tokyo Disneyland. Bill was, naturally, declared an official Disney Legend in 1994 for taking the theme park design torch from Walt himself and carrying it right on into the future. He has also been honored with not one but two mentions on Main Street USA windows. If you are in Disneyland, look above the Main Street Bank and you’ll see a window with his given name, Wilson Martin, right over the name Gabriel Scognamillo, who was the art director for Tomorrowland during Disneyland’s creation. If you find yourself in the Magic Kingdom, Bill is named as part of a larger group of Walt Disney World’s original designers on a window above the Plaza Restaurant. That window reads “Walter E. Disney - Graduate School of Design & Master Planning - Instructors, Howard Brummitt, Marvin Davis, Fred Hope - Headmaster, Richard Irvine - Dean of Design, John Hench - Instructors, Vic Greene, Bill Martin, Chuck Myall.” Bill passed away on August 2, 2010. He was 93.