Walt Disney, whose Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck brought laughter to the world and whose Disneyland is a playground for the world's people, calls his home at Smoke Tree Ranch, "my laughing place."
Whimsical, as always, he refers to the Uncle Remus story where Brer Rabbit oh-so-casually mentions his "laughing place" and makes it sound so intriguing that Brer Fox insists on seeing it. Brer Rabbit takes Brer Fox to the entrance of a thorny thicket, saying, "It tickles you so that you have to laugh." After Brer Fox runs through and emerges bleeding from many scratches, he complains, "I thought you called this a laughing place." Brer Rabbit laughs. "I said it was my laughing place."
Disney made his earliest visits to Palm Springs when the downtown was little more than the Desert Inn, drug store and department store. By the 30s he was coming down to Smoke Tree Ranch and staying in the guest cottages. That was when Charlie Doyle owned the ranch, and Disney reminisces, "I remember Doyle trying to get me interested as a partner. I didn't have the money he thought I did, for I was still having problems financing my productions. Actually, it wasn't until after Mickey Mouse that we could afford to have a house there."
He and his wife and two daughters spent many happy days there and those days coincided with the first two of what Walt designates as the Three Ages of Girlhood: The first, a time for being in love with Dad, followed by a time for being in love with horses. It was at the ranch that he taught them to ride and both girls are considered good horsewomen. Then came the third stage, when the teen-age girls were more interested in boys and didn't want to leave home because they might miss a 'phone call. This came at a time when Disneyland was being born and Walt needed all the money he could raise ($17 million), so he sold the Smoke Tree house.
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