Frontierland: the land of Disney’s Wild West

Frontierland is one of the five lands at Disneyland Park and opened on April 12, 1992. It sits to the left of and south of Adventureland, behind Main Street U.S.A., a different layout from the American and Japanese parks, where it’s located north of Adventureland. Its name means "land of the frontier," a reference to the last frontier of the United States.

Its theme is how Americans pushed west during the nineteenth century, with the years 1790 to 1880 as the specific time frame. The scenery runs from the shores of the Mississippi all the way to the edge of California, as a tribute to the pioneers. Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon helped shape both its buildings and its landscape. What makes the land special is how unified it feels: a made-up little town, Thunder Mesa, guides you on a journey through the West’s architecture and geography. The town comes with its own legends and big personalities, such as the Ravenswood family, who owned Phantom Manor as well as the Big Thunder Mountain mine, now abandoned.

You enter through a fort called Fort Comstock, a nod to a silver mine in Virginia City, Nevada, and to Imagineer Paul Comstock, who was in charge of landscaping. Shoshone tepees mark your arrival in the land. The trash cans bear the date 1849, the year immigrants poured into California for the gold rush (the "forty-niners").

The main attraction is Big Thunder Mountain, a 33-meter-high mine train ride that recalls the California gold rush of 1848-1849. The mountain rises on an island in the middle of the Rivers of the Far West (instead of being dedicated to Tom Sawyer as in the other parks). Several forced-perspective tricks make it look taller: trees in the foreground are bigger than the ones in back, and the colors get softer toward the rear. All the props in the line and along the ride date from the late nineteenth century, salvaged from ghost towns, museums, and abandoned mines across the US. Behind the mountain lies Wilderness Island, inspired by a real island in Maine.

Phantom Manor is the second major ride. Unlike the Haunted Mansion versions at the other parks, its facade looks rundown on purpose, setting the mood without any explanatory signs. The right side is more damaged than the left because bad weather comes from the east. The original English narration was by Vincent Price, later replaced at the request of French-speaking guests by Gérard Chevalier, Vincent Price’s French voice actor. The evil laugh is still Vincent Price’s. The cemetery next door, Boot Hill, is full of funny epitaphs and references.

The land also includes Rustler Roundup Shootin’ Gallery, Legends of the Wild West (inside Fort Comstock), the Frontierland Playground (which opened in June 1993 as Pocahontas Indian Village), the Frontierland Theater (formerly the Chaparral Stage from 1993, then the Chaparral Theater, renamed in 2019), and the Disneyland Railroad’s Frontierland Depot station (whose telegraph taps out in Morse code the speech Walt Disney gave when Disneyland opened in California). Thunder Mesa Riverboat Landing is home to the Molly Brown Riverboat, named after the Titanic survivor whose husband made his fortune by buying a mine.

Dining revolves around three spots, each tied to a precious metal: The Lucky Nugget Saloon (gold, fictionally founded in 1858), Silver Spur Steakhouse (silver), and Last Chance Café (copper). Add to that Fuente del Oro and Cowboy Cookout Barbecue (where every chair is different, just like back when each cowboy brought his own). The stores are clustered in the Thunder Mesa Mercantile Building (Tobias Norton & Sons, Bonanza Outfitters, Eureka Mining Supplies) and at Pueblo Trading Post, inspired by the Taos Pueblo village in New Mexico.

The whole land reads as a single story: Thunder Mesa, once a thriving nineteenth-century mining post in the Wild West, became a ghost town after a mysterious disaster involving the Ravenswood family. Big Thunder Mountain tells the tale of the haunted gold mine, and Phantom Manor that of the cursed mansion where Melanie Ravenswood waits for her missing fiancé.

The common thread is a tragic local chronicle: the mine, the mansion, the river, the trading post, and the cemetery all belong to one story dreamed up by the Imagineers, with narrative links that cross between the attractions.

The land by the numbers, pulled from across the site for a quick visual summary.

Frontierland was there from day one, opening alongside the park on April 12, 1992, together with Big Thunder Mountain, Phantom Manor, Thunder Mesa Riverboat Landing, and Rustler Roundup Shootin’ Gallery.

Frontierland Playground was added in 1996. The Frontierland Theater has hosted Tarzan, La Rencontre (1999-2009), then Festival of the Lion King (2010-2018), and The Lion King: Rhythms of the Pride Lands since June 30, 2019.

Several rides and areas have closed or changed over the years. The Indians Canoes ran until October 1994. The River Rogue Keelboats sailed from 1992 to 2002, then again from 2007 to 2009. The Mark Twain Riverboat was retired in 2011. Critter Corral, an animal ranch, gave way in summer 2007 to Woody’s Roundup Village, then to the Marché d’Arendelle in 2015, and later to other seasonal setups. Several early projects were dropped before opening: Geyser Mountain (a mine elevator descent ending with a blast from a geyser), Thunder Mesa Lumber Co. (a log ride scrapped because of the weather), and Lil’ Thunder Mine (a kids’ version of Big Thunder Mountain, shelved for budget reasons).

Want to dig deeper? all the secrets and fun facts of Frontierland

The land takes its cue from Frontierland at Disneyland in Anaheim (1955) and Westernland at Tokyo Disneyland (1983). What sets the Paris version apart is a layout found nowhere else in the world, on an island in the middle of the lake, with Phantom Manor (the darkest take on the Haunted Mansion).