The Elias Window

My son, Elias, may never be able to walk into a toy store and buy a little licence plate for his bike with his name printed on it, nor will he probably ever find pencils, stickers or erasers with Elias printed on them. But he does have his name printed somewhere special that most people can't brag of. In Walt Disney World (and Disneyland in California, too) Main Street U.S.A. recreates a small American town at the turn of the century. Along the street are buildings made to look like the many businesses that one might have found in such a small town in the early 1900's. Each of the windows features names of business owners, while the businesses are all fictitious the names on the windows kind of serve as the production credits for the park. All the names that you see in the upstairs windows along Main Street U.S.A are the names of people who had a hand (one way or another) in the creation of the park.


While walking down Main Street towards Cinderella's castle, on the right hand about midway down, there is a small outcove among the shops. This area used to be known as the Flower Mart but is now mostly vacant except for a few tables and chairs and perhaps an ice cream vendor or artist. One of these windows advertises the services of a contractor by the name of Elias Disney. He was Walt Disney's father, who was actually at one time a contractor. Walt was given his father's name as his own middle name making him Walter Elias Disney. This is where my wife and I got the name Elias, because I really wanted to name my son after Walt Disney and my wife wouldn't go for Walt or Mickey. (or for that matter: Donald, Huey, Louie, Prince Charming or Goofy!)

So there's Elias' name up in lights (sort of) for all of Disney World to see. It's kind of become a tradition for us to stop by and say hi to the window, and on this last trip Elias even recognized his own name up there! I guess my other son, Tanner, will have to wait for an ALF amusement park to be built to have such an honor.