60 years ago today, Eagle Scouts helped open Disneyland

When he helped open Disneyland on July 17, 1955, Eagle Scout Paul Cuthbert didn’t realize how big of a deal it was.

Sixty years later, the significance of that day isn’t lost on Cuthbert, now 77 and living in Fullerton, Calif.

As the Orange County Register explains, Cuthbert was one of several Eagle Scouts from Los Angeles asked to participate in the opening ceremonies at the nation’s first Disney theme park.

The Eagle Scouts were positioned in Tomorrowland. Every state had its own flag on a flagpole, and every flagpole had an Eagle Scout standing by it.

This no doubt made for an impressive sight during the live TV shot on ABC. After the cameras stopped rolling, Cuthbert and his fellow Eagle Scouts “could roam around and do anything we wanted,” he told the newspaper.

He went on two rides: the Jungle Cruise and the Mark Twain Riverboat, which he said looked “like the real thing — not that I was there, but like you would imagine the old-time riverboat would be.”

Find more recollections from Cuthbert’s day at Disneyland in this OC Register video, below.

See also

CNN has more coverage of Disneyland’s 60th birthday.


About Bryan Wendell 3282 Articles
Bryan Wendell, an Eagle Scout, is the founder of Bryan on Scouting and a contributing writer.