Disney’s Own Airport?

Driving into Disney and just past the Magic Kingdom ticket booth, on the way to The Wilderness Lodge Area, there’s a huge parking area on the right. Largely unused today… but it would make me wonder way it was there. Well, take a trip into history 40 years ago. The only area visible from the road is the huge tarmac ( parking lot now )of what was once an airport at Disney. The actual runway can not be seen for all the trees. Wow… Did you know that Disney had it’s own airport. The airport was constructed in 1970 while they were building Disney World. It was conveniently  located adjacent of the Ticket and Transportation Center. In the early 70’s it was used not only by Mickey One to fly Disney personnel to Florida, but by Shawnee Airlines to have regular service from Orlando’s McCoy Airport to WDW’s airport, which was know as Lake Buena Vista STOL airport.  The airfield had a 2000 foot runway and private planes were also granted permission to land on the airfield as welcome guests through the 70’s. With the construction of the Epcot Monorail System, the elevated tracks of the Monorail presented an possible obstacle for landing planes and the airfield was never used after this construction began. Even when Mickey One was retired and flown into WDW, the airfield was not used. Instead, World Drive was shut down to traffic, and Mickey One actually used World Drive as a runway and landed there. Mickey One now resides in the Hollywood Studios Boneyard.  The runway is still completely intact today, repaved, and primarily used as a bus staging area and storage for sea crates and tractor trailers. Wow… who knew? So there’s your interesting little fact for the day. Drive by it all the time… just never knew… and now we do!