The new Disneyland Handcrafted documentary will highlight Admiral Joe Fowler, a Navy veteran who oversaw the construction of Disneyland.

Admiral Joe Fowler in Disneyland Handcrafted

According to The Orange County Register, the documentary’s director Leslie Iwerks said at the Thursday premiere, “Joe Fowler was really an unsung hero overseeing that whole park and that whole construction. What an amazing feat that he did.”

The documentary uses archive footage to tell the story of Disneyland’s construction in the months leading up to its July 1955 opening. Fowler is featured throughout.

Fowler retired from the U.S. Navy in 1948 after 35 years of service. He joined the Disneyland project in April 1954 when Walt was looking for a naval expert to help with the Mark Twain Riverboat. Within a few months, he was the construction manager of Disneyland.

“Walt right from the beginning, made up his mind that he would have something different,” Fowler says in Disneyland Handcrafted. “He would have the concept of a family amusement park. We were highly criticized at the beginning by some of the old time operators for spending too much money and going into too much detail.”

In footage from the live ABC broadcast of Disneyland’s opening, featured in Disneyland Handcrafted, Fowler operated the Mark Twain Riverboat on the park’s opening day.

Fowler was General Manager of Disneyland for 10 years, overseeing the opening of the Disneyland Monorail, Matterhorn Bobsleds, and Submarine Voyage. In the latter attraction, Walt honored Fowler with a plaque designating him Commander-in-Chief of the Disneyland Navy.

In the 1960s, Fowler was placed in charge of the Florida Project, which would become Magic Kingdom. “At one point during the Florida project,” the D23 website states, “Joe held three posts, simultaneously: senior vice president, engineering and construction, for Walt Disney Productions; chairman of the board of WED Enterprises, now known as Walt Disney Imagineering; and director of construction for Disney’s Buena Vista Construction Company.”

After Magic Kingdom opened, Fowler retired from The Walt Disney Company in 1978. He was named a Disney legend in 1990 and passed away in 1993 at the age of 99.

Tributes to Fowler remain at Disney Parks. The dry dock harbor for the S.S. Columbia and Mark Twain Riverboat at Disneyland is “Fowler’s Harbor” and has a Fowler’s Inn building. At Walt Disney World, there was previously an Admiral Joe Fowler riverboat but it was destroyed in a dry dock incident in 1980. In the ’90s, one of the ferryboats that travels between the Transportation and Ticket Center and Magic Kingdom was rechristened the Admiral Joe Fowler.

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