Elias Disney

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Elias' son, Walt, paid tribute to his father with a small sign on his Main Street USA attraction at Disneyland which is still in place today. It reads, “ELIAS DISNEY, CONTRACTOR, EST. 1895.”

Elias Disney (February 6, 1859–September 13, 1941) was the father of Walt Disney.

Elias was born in the rural village of Bluevale, Ontario, Canada, to Kepple Disney and Mary Richardson. He became a farmer and a businessman with little success. Elias moved to California with his father in 1878 in hopes of finding gold. Instead, Kepple was convinced by an agent of the Union Pacific Railroad to buy 200 acres (800,000 m²) of land near Ellis, Kansas.

Elias worked on his father's new farm until 1884, when he left to find another job. He was hired in a railroad machine shop (one of his co-workers was Walter Chrysler), then he joined the railroad crew building the Union Pacific line through Colorado. After the railroad contract was over, he became a professional fiddle player in Denver. Again he was unsuccessful, and he returned to his father's farm.

He married Flora Call on January 1, 1888, in Acron, Florida. She was the daughter of his father's neighbors. Elias and Flora had five children:

Herbert Arthur Disney, born on December 8, 1888.
Raymond Arnold Disney, born on December 30, 1890.
Roy Oliver Disney, born on June 24, 1893.
Walter "Walt" Elias Disney, born on December 5, 1901.
Ruth Flora Disney born on December 6, 1903.

Soon after the marriage, the couple moved to Chicago, Illinois, where Elias met and befriended Walter Parr, St. Paul Congregational Church's preacher. Elias named his fourth son after both himself and his close friend.

According to some sources, Elias worried about the rising criminality of the city. In 1906 he moved with his family to a farm near Marceline, Missouri. The family sold the farm in 1909 and lived in a rented house until 1911, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri.

Elias Disney was a construction worker for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, an event which author Erik Larson cites as a likely source of inspiration for his son Walt and the Disney kingdom he would eventually create.[1]