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Yes, Colorado! You know, our 38th state, the Centennial State. It turns out that a couple of key designers for Disneyland had roots or experience in Colorado, and the Colorado connections reverberate in Disney parks even today. As Doc Brown might say, let's go back - back in time to 1955!

...Or a few years before that even. Walt's plans for Disneyland were just evolving beyond a small entertainment zone adjacent to the Studio and into a full-sized theme park. Walt turned to his trusted studio artists, such as animator Ken Anderson, to help lay out the park. C.V. Wood was involved in several aspects of the design and construction phase of the park, as was conceptual designer Harper Goff. One of Goff's duties would be the design and creation of Main Street, U.S.A., an idealized central street from turn- of- the- century America.

It is commonly said that Main Street represents Walt's view of his childhood home in Marceline, Missouri. Indeed, there is something of a main street at Marceline, but the buildings in Disneyland's Main Street do not owe their designs to anything in Marceline. Rather, Goff turned to his boyhood home: Fort Collins, Colorado. Let's look at the evidence:

Pretty convincing pictures, aren't they? If you think the Colorado connections are restricted to just simple building reproductions, you would be wrong. But here we have to veer into Knott's Berry Farm territory to get back to the Disney connection.

If you are a fan of railroading -- and what self- respecting Disney fan doesn't share Walt's fascination with live steam and railroading history? -- then you may have had occasion to notice the steam trains at Knott's Berry Farm. These engines -- the Denver & Rio Grande and Rio Grande Southern -- trace their roots to Colorado. Thanks go to MousePlanet reader Brian Walls for some of the initial research on the following train connection.

The Denver & Rio Grande railroad had blasted its line into Silverton, Colorado, in the southwest corner of the state. A local businessman by the name of Otto Mears built short lines north out of Silverton, but could never reach his goal of the mining town of Ouray, because the mountains were far too steep for narrow-gauge trains which did not have not enough adhesion to the rails. Mears backed up to Durango and started building a line, which he called the Rio Grande Southern, that started west, then headed north, and eventually east to reach Ouray.

The line was never very profitable, but during the Depression things got so desperate, they converted and modified cars or trucks to run on the rails, saving the cost of running the much more expensive locomotives. An example of this is the weird- looking silver contraption nowadays on the side track at Knott's. Probably the oddest use of the Rio Grande Southern line came at the end of World War II. It seems there was uranium near Grand Junction, Colorado, north of the Rio Grande Southern line, so it was arranged that this line helped move the "yellow cake" south to New Mexico.

The next time you are at Knott's, consider that one- time use of the railroad. Is it coincidence that Knott, who bought the railroad a few years later, painted the passenger cars yellow? Grins aside, it actually is coincidence. And Disney's rolling stock was initially yellow as well.

Knott's didn't buy all of the engines and rolling stock from the Rio Grande Southern; much of it went into museums such as the Colorado Railroad Museum, which used to be the NG Hotel. Meanwhile, other cars and engines were used elsewhere in the country, including Caboose 0409. What's so special about this caboose? It saw duty, after a brief stay in the NG Hotel, at Magic Mountain.

No, not the Six Flags park in California, but a themed amusement park outside Denver also called Magic Mountain, and designed by none other than C.V. Wood, one of those master planners of Disneyland since its earliest days. Wood had left Disney by 1956 -- details are scarce just as to why -- and started up three theme parks of his own: Magic Mountain in 1958, Pleasure Island in 1959, and Freedomland in 1960. None of the parks lasted more than a few years, probably because they were not in heavily populated zones (with the exception of Freedomland, which had been in the Bronx in New York).

And what of Caboose 0409? Oh, it ended up getting used again after its days in the C.V. Wood park. It's still in use today ... at Tokyo Disneyland! This is where the implications get funky. It is entirely possible that one of the present-day Knott's Berry Farm engines once pulled the present-day Tokyo Disneyland caboose! It is indeed a small world, at least when it comes to railroading.

Just how small can it get? Consider this dismaying observation: Harper Goff, who was brought in by Disney to do Main Street, didn't meet Walt at the studio or even in California. The two of them ran into each other in 1951 in the Bassett-Lowke Ltd. Train Shop in London, England. Goff was yet another railroad enthusiast!

And here you thought the "Back to the Future" trilogy was full of bizarre coincidences and overlapping connections between people!

You can write Kevin Yee at kevinyee@mouseplanet.com

Column by Kevin Yee