page_title: Elias Disney
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Elias Disney / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo taken by David Ball, August 2006.
context_page_description: Elias Charles Disney was the father of Roy and Walt Disney.
context_section_description: Disney worked on his father's new farm until 1884, when he left to find another job. He was hired in a railroad machine shop (one of his co-workers was Walter Chrysler), then he joined the railroad crew building the Union Pacific line through Colorado. After the railroad contract was over, he became a professional fiddle player in Denver. Again he was unsuccessful, and he returned to his father's farm.  He also worked for a short time as a mailman in Kissimmee, Florida, close to the eventual site of Walt Disney World. Disney did also attempt to make a career as an orange grower in Florida, but he was unsuccessful. Although frequently unsuccessful at self-employment, Disney's entrepreneurial tendencies were passed on to his son Walt.
  He was a construction worker for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, an event which author Erik Larson cites as a source of inspiration for his son Walt and the Disney kingdom he would eventually create. He bought shares of O-Zell Company, a jelly-canning factory that also produced apple juice in Chicago, where his son Walt Disney worked before he joined the Red Cross Ambulance Corps in World War I.
caption: Disney's son, Walt, paid tribute to his father with a small sign on his Main Street USA attraction at Disneyland which is still in place today. It reads, "ELIAS DISNEY, CONTRACTOR, EST. 1895."
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