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Harold Glenn Holland (1918-2002) was a developer from Arcadia, California, USA, who established the first amusement parks franchise, Santa's Village. [1]
Holland grew up during the Great Depression, and his parents died before his eighteenth birthday, leaving him to care for his younger sister.
In 1953, Holland proposed Santa's Village after reading a Saturday Evening Post story about a similar project called North Pole in New York City. He set up a corporation that funded the amusement park and leased the land from the family of the general contractor, J. Putnam Henck.
In the early 1950s, Holland sketched his idea of a Christmas fairyland filled with enormous candy canes, animals and gingerbread houses. Holland developed this idea into a working plan and sought investors for his project. He traveled the country promoting his Santa's Village concept and selling $45 stock shares, and eventually listed his company, Santa's Village Corporation, on the California Stock Exchange.
Around the same time, Walt Disney was building Disneyland. Holland contacted Disney, and they reportedly [ citation needed ] corresponded for a time. While Disney was already wealthy from his films, Holland was an unknown.
Holland was also friends with Dick and Maurice McDonald. The McDonald brothers told him about their business idea with Ray Kroc for their eponymous chain of fast-food restaurants. The story inspired Holland to franchise his parks. [2]
The first Santa's Village opened on Memorial Day in 1955, six weeks before Disneyland, in Skyforest near Lake Arrowhead in San Bernardino County, California. [3] It closed in 1998. A second Santa's Village opened in 1957 near Scotts Valley in Santa Cruz County, California, staying open until 1979. The last Santa's Village opened in 1959 in the Chicago suburb of East Dundee and closed in 2006. The park reopened under new ownership in 2011 and continues to operate to this day as Santa's Village. The Skyforest, California location was reopened in late 2016 and renamed SkyPark at Santa's Village.
Holland had planned for the Dundee Park to be the hub of a nationwide chain of Santa's Villages. The other two, in Richmond, Virginia, and Cherry Hill, New Jersey, were never built.
Despite the park's early popularity, Holland had not planned for the freezing weather in Illinois. While his West Coast parks stayed open year-round, with the best attendance in the weeks before Christmas, the Chicago area was too cold. Eventually, Santa's Village in East Dundee was in the odd position of being closed at Christmas. The miscalculation helped lead to the collapse of the company. Finances were stretched thin. By 1965, investors rebelled. Holland left the company, and the parks were sold.
"Where he made the error was going on and doing the final one in Illinois. It was just not financially a good idea," said Reece, his daughter. "But he knew he had touched people with the parks. It was the most special thing he felt he had ever done."[ citation needed ]
Holland later became a real estate developer and died in 2002 at 84. [ citation needed ]
An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central theme, often featuring multiple areas with different themes. Unlike temporary and mobile funfairs and carnivals, amusement parks are stationary and built for long-lasting operation. They are more elaborate than city parks and playgrounds, usually providing attractions that cater to a variety of age groups. While amusement parks often contain themed areas, theme parks place a heavier focus with more intricately-designed themes that revolve around a particular subject or group of subjects.
Disney California Adventure is a theme park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Experiences division. The 72-acre (29 ha) park is themed after Disney's interpretation of California, by the use of Disney, Pixar and Marvel properties. The park opened on February 8, 2001, and is the second of two theme parks built at the Disneyland Resort complex, after Disneyland.
The Disneyland Resort is an entertainment resort in Anaheim, California, United States. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Experiences division and is home to two theme parks, three hotels, and the Downtown Disney shopping, dining, and entertainment district.
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Incredicoaster is a steel launched roller coaster located at Disney California Adventure in Anaheim, California, United States. Manufactured by Intamin, the ride was originally opened to the public as California Screamin' in early 2001. It is the only roller coaster with an inversion at the Disneyland Resort and it is the fastest, reaching a maximum speed of 55 mph (89 km/h). With a track length of 6,072 feet (1,851 m), Incredicoaster is the sixth-longest steel roller coaster in the world.
Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress is a rotating theater audio-animatronic stage show attraction in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida, just outside of Orlando. Created by Walt Disney and WED Enterprises as the prime feature of the General Electric (GE) Pavilion for the 1964 New York World's Fair, the attraction was moved to Tomorrowland at Disneyland in Anaheim, California as Carousel of Progress, and remained there from 1967 until 1973. It was replaced in Disneyland by America Sings in 1974, and reopened in its present home in the Magic Kingdom in 1975.
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Mission to Mars was an attraction located in Tomorrowland at Disneyland and at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. It originally opened as Rocket to the Moon at Disneyland in 1955, and as Flight to the Moon in Walt Disney World on Christmas Eve 1971, before it was retooled to the Mars version in 1975. It then closed down in 1992 and 1993, respectively. The attraction simulated taking guests on a space trip to the Moon or Mars.
Gadget's Go Coaster is a junior roller coaster at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California, and the Tokyo Disneyland theme park, located in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan, near Tokyo. It is based on the work of the character Gadget Hackwrench from the Disney animated series Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (1989–1990). Gadget is depicted on top of a small weathervane on the roof of the loading station, as well as on a postage stamp in the attraction's loading area. The Disneyland version also includes a static figure of Gadget before the coaster's lift hill.
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Santa's Village Amusement & Water Park is a theme park in East Dundee, Illinois. It was originally built by Glenn Holland, who also built two other Santa's Villages, in California; one located in San Bernardino County and the other in Santa Cruz County. The Illinois park, the third to be built, was intended to be the flagship of a chain of Santa's Villages across the country. However, parks planned for Richmond, Virginia, and Cherry Hill, New Jersey, were never built, and the park in East Dundee became the last of its kind.
Big Thunder Ranch was an attraction at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California, United States. It included an outdoor petting zoo, a walk-through log cabin, and a variety of scenery meant to create the atmosphere of a Western ranch. It was located in Frontierland, nearby Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Inside one could find sheep, goats, cows, and other farm animals. Among these animals were the two turkeys who received presidential pardons in honor of Thanksgiving in 2008. The attraction was hosted by Brawny.
Disneyland is a theme park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It was the first theme park opened by the Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney, and opened on July 17, 1955.
Jessie's Critter Carousel is a carousel at Disney California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. The attraction opened to the public as King Triton's Carousel of the Sea on February 8, 2001.
SkyPark at Santa's Village is an outdoor adventure park with year-round mountain biking, hiking, fly fishing and open air activities in the Skyforest section of Lake Arrowhead, California. It opened on December 2, 2016, on the site of the former Santa's Village amusement park, which operated from 1955 until 1998.
Santa's Village was a Christmas-themed amusement park from 1957 to 1979, located in Scotts Valley, California, United States.
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