A visit to Walt Disney World can often feel like a treasure hunt for me. While most attribute their fun at the parks and resorts to the rides, attractions, activities, or food, I get a secret satisfaction from noticing details—large or small—to other Disney or pop culture characters, celebrities, films, or IPs (MuppetVision’s “A Net Full of Jello,” anyone?). As a historian, I also love seeing some of the accurate historical details that the park’s Imagineers have included to bring accuracy and believability to the resort’s locations.
Recently while randomly scrolling through Instagram, I stumbled across a photograph of Le Vieux Moulin de Vernon, an old water mill located along the Seine approximately 77 kilometers northwest of Paris. Originally built in the 1500s, this small house sits atop two stone pillars that once held up a bridge connecting the towns of Vernonnet and Vernon. A water wheel likely hung beneath the house at one time, used to provide power to grinding mill stones inside the structure.
When Imagineers designed the Magic Kingdom, Fantasyland was meant to represent medieval Europe, with many of the attraction facades decorated like tournament tents from the 1400s or 1500s while Cinderella Castle towered overhead. A transitionary portal was needed for the division between Fantasyland and Liberty Square, and Imagineers decided to design the overhead structure to look like Le Vieux Moulin.
One will notice that both the original structure and the Disney reproduction are styled in the same stick-constructed manner, with a pair of dormers capping the “wooden” shingles. The Magic Kingdom structure is even perched upon a pair of columns, much like its French counterpart, allowing guests to pass beneath from one part of the park to another.
This design decision is not just aesthetic, however. Imagineers utilized the interior of this space as a seating area for the adjacent Columbia Harbour House quick service restaurant, offering one of the quietest and neatest dining views in all of the Magic Kingdom.
Many pass beneath this medieval overpass without a second thought, merely assuming it is just meant to blend in with the rest of Fantasyland and Liberty Square. However, the next time you’re wandering the park, you can remember and point out to your friends and family the real story of this otherwise unassuming structure!