Ichabod's Landing Is Gone, and Piston Peak's Walls Now Advertise a Catfish-Riding Cowgirl
The former Ichabod's Landing gift shop beside The Haunted Mansion has been demolished for Piston Peak National Park construction at Magic Kingdom, along with the adjacent Mike Fink Keel Boats landing. New construction walls blocking the Frontierland boardwalk carry vintage-style posters referencing Melody Time, Pete's Dragon, Snowball Express and the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue.
The former Ichabod's Landing gift shop beside The Haunted Mansion has been completely demolished as work on Piston Peak National Park pushes deeper into Magic Kingdom. In its place, the construction walls that now block the Frontierland boardwalk have been dressed with vintage-style posters, including a rodeo advertisement for a catfish-riding cowgirl from a 1948 Disney film.
The Keelboat Shop's Last Trace Is Cleared
Ichabod's Landing sat right next to the Haunted Mansion's entrance gates, on ground now sealed behind construction walls. Like the adjacent Mike Fink Keel Boats landing, the building has been taken down entirely. The structure to its right survives, and has actually been given an extension.
The shop opened life as the Keelboat Shop, serving the Mike Fink Keel Boats attraction that ran on the Rivers of America. It closed for a reason that says a lot about this corner of the park: the Haunted Mansion queue grew long enough to make the location unworkable for retail.
The demolition also exposes how much the ground level has been raised here over the past few months. A blue tower visible in the cleared area is the base of a tower crane installed in July. The rest of that crane has not yet arrived.
Vintage Posters Now Cover the Frontierland Walls
Construction walls were extended this week to completely block the Frontierland boardwalk, and Disney has decorated the new stretch with themed signage rather than leaving it blank. Most of it is period advertising, and several pieces are deep-cut references:
- Notices seeking gold miners for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
- A yellowing advertisement for the Hard Times Cafe
- A poster for the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue at Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort
- A rodeo poster billing The Amazin' Slue-Foot Sue, the one and only catfish-riding cowgirl, from the Pecos Bill segment of Disney's Melody Time (1948). Sue's poster is already peeling off the wall
- Advertisements for a Wonder Heart Cure and miracle remedies from Doctor Terminus, the villain of Pete's Dragon (1977)
- A poster for Hundreds of Acres, a nod to the Hundred Acre Wood from Winnie the Pooh, sited in Silver Hill, Colorado, the setting of Disney's Snowball Express (1972)
Another cluster of signs advertises the C'est Beau brand, Dr. Miga's Moustache Wax, Makin' Groceries, oil soap for hardwood, Terrebonne Molasses and Julius and Co laundry soap. Those are all replicas of signage inside Tiana's Bayou General, which means Disney is reusing artwork it already produced for the neighbouring corner of the park rather than commissioning fresh pieces for a temporary wall.
The walls are not fully covered. Long stretches still carry the standard Walt Disney World construction wall quotes, and more is likely to be added, including Piston Peak concept art, which has not appeared here yet.
Why This Corner of Magic Kingdom Keeps Shrinking
Piston Peak National Park is rising on the former Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island footprint behind Frontierland and Liberty Square, and the practical consequence for guests is a steady loss of walkable ground on this side of the park. Blocking the Frontierland boardwalk removes one of the quieter ways to move between Liberty Square and Frontierland, which pushes more foot traffic through the narrow stretch in front of the Haunted Mansion.
One upside of the clearing: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is now easily visible from a spot on the Liberty Square side of the walls where it previously was not. Sightlines in this part of Magic Kingdom have always been carefully managed, so a new view of a mountain range is a reminder of how much has been taken down here.
The Buzz
Poster walls are the first moment a Disney construction project starts telling a story instead of just fencing off dirt, and this set is unusually generous with the references. A catfish-riding cowgirl from Melody Time and a patent-medicine advertisement from Pete's Dragon are not the sort of thing that goes on a wall by accident, and guests have been reading them line by line all week.
A Tower Crane Base Is In, and the Crane Itself Has Not Arrived
The most concrete indicator of where Piston Peak stands is that blue tower in the cleared ground: a tower crane base installed in July with no crane on it yet. When the rest of that crane arrives, vertical construction on the project's larger structures follows.
Until then, expect the walls to keep creeping and the poster collection to keep growing. Concept art panels are still missing from this stretch, and those usually go up once Disney is ready for guests to look at what is coming rather than what has gone.