Walt Disney dreamed of a St. Louis park. Then the deal went bust

St. Louis on the Air

In the 1960s, St. Louis nearly became one of the most magical places on earth. A planned Disneyland, called the Riverfront Square, captured imaginations as local leaders sought to strike a deal with Walt Disney himself — until that deal went bibbidi, bobbidi, bust. In this encore episode from May 2024, writer Devin Thomas O'Shea reminds us of what the canceled Disney attraction might have been, the disputed reasons why the plan fell apart (no, it wasn't just over beer), and the problematic characters and mythologized storytelling that the park would have been designed around.