Walter Elias Disney was actually born in Chicago. But he spent his childhood years on a farm in Marceline, Mo. The Kansas City Star (a paper Walt once worked for as a paper boy) profiles Marceline, a town where you can still feel Walt.
With hand-painted road signs, several towns here in north-central
Missouri promote themselves as the boyhood homes of various men of
national note – J.C. Penney and Gen. John J. Pershing are just a couple
– but no location has done more to create the cult of personality than
Marceline, population about 2,500. There is Disney Elementary School,
the Disney Complex baseball field, the Disney Complex pool and Walt
Disney Municipal Park.
Marceline is now turning the train station Walt must have passed through a hundred times into a Museum dedicated in his honor.