Western River Expedition

**The Western River Expedition** or **WRE** is an unbuilt attraction which was planned for Walt Disney World's Frontierland in the Magic Kingdom.

## Legacy

### EPCOT

#### Living with the Land

The prairie sequence of this attraction in the LAND pavilion was recycled from plans for Western River Expedition.

#### Maelstrom/Frozen Ever After

This defunct attraction was a boat/dark-ride which climaxed with a backwards waterfall segment, incredibly similarly to what was planned for the Western River Expedition. Maelstrom was eventually re-themed to the 2013 animated feature-film *Frozen* but retained the aforementioned elements taken from WRE.

#### World of Motion

The defunct attraction World of Motion featured a segment where a group of bandits were robbing a train. These bandits were visually based off of those created by Marc Davis for the Western River Expedition.

### Frontierland

#### Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

The Arizona townships of *Thunder Mesa* in Disneyland Paris and *Tumbleweed* in the Magic Kingdom are inspired by the mesa town of *Dry Gulch*. The disasters, storms and floods which these towns are also inspired by the flash-flood and thunderstorm from Western River Expedition.

Walt Disney World's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad took up the space planned for the WRE. They reference the attraction with, "Western River Explosives" in the queue.

#### Phantom Manor

Many of the vignettes in the Phantom Canyon sequence of this dark-ride are inspired by those created for the Western River Expedition. Notably are the characters of the bandit, sheriff, showgirl, and bartender who are near-identical to their WRE counterparts.

#### Splash Mountain

The highly racist and largely removed attraction Splash Mountain featured an owl audio-animatronic character named *Prof. Barnaby Owl* who was greatly similar in function to WRE's Hoot Gibson. The inappropriate attraction was also predominately developed by Imagineer Tony Baxter who was also responsible for the WRE elements integrated in Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Disneyland Paris' Frontierland and Phantom Manor.

## Connections

### Rivers of the Far West

The Mark Twain Riverboat and Molly Brown Riverboat are both stated in the Thunder Mesa Daily Messenger to be part of the, "Western River Line" fleet. This river-line is responsible for connecting the towns of Thunder Mesa, Tumbleweed, Rainbow Ridge and Stillwater Junction in Arizona with Grizzly Gulch in California. Notable members of the line include historic figures Sam Clemens and Molly Brown, both of whom originate from Missouri.

### In other media

#### Disney Kingdoms

In *Disney Kingdoms: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad*, the Bandidos from Western River Expedition are made into major characters. The ranks of the group include the likes of Jason Chandler (based on the president of the *Society of Explorers and Adventurers* from Discovery Bay), Abigail Bullion (daughter of S.E.A. member Barnabas T. Bullion), Dolfo, and Onawa.

## References

1. ↑ https://insidethemagic.net/2016/01/d-tales-14-hidden-disney-history-at-big-thunder-mountain-railroad/
2. ↑ https://www.flickr.com/photos/23879054@N00/3108936261