Western River Expedition

The attraction began life as a proposal of a historical recreation of the Western Expansion of the United States, that would have been built on the banks of the Mississippi River in St. Louis, near the Jefferson National Memorial.

Many following scenes would then take place in a fictional town known as Dry Gulch, where guests would have witnessed a musical show (a bank robbery, prisoners escaping the Sheriff's cells via a tunnel, a saloon with a cowboy on horseback on its roof, plus ten other characters including a bartender trying to shoot the intruder off the roof, three saloon girls, and other cowboys hooting and hollering.

The scene ends with guests about to be robbed by the aforementioned Mexican banditos (from the stagecoach robbery) but escaping via a waterfall-drop finale.

Other features of the pavilion-style WRE would have included hiking trails atop the mesa, a Pueblo Indian village, and a pack mule attraction.

The economic downturn of the early 1970s and changes in Disney management also contributed to keeping the project from going through, along with concerns over the stereotypes of Indians and the loss of popularity of Westerns.

Such chances were minimized due to several factors, which, besides changes in management and an economic downturn, included: When ground broke on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in January 1979, Marc Davis, desperate to save his Western River Expedition, offered a compromise: the roller coaster could be built as long as a scaled down WRE was built opposite the railroad tracks.

Frontierland would not receive a water based attraction until 1992, when Splash Mountain, a log flume themed to the film Song of the South, opened.

The Magic Kingdom's version of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad opened on November 15, 1980, on the plot of land originally to be occupied by the Western River Expedition.

Imagineers have instead slipped parts of the ride into other attractions: Splash Mountain, World of Motion, Phantom Manor, and Living with the Land.

Davis' concept drawings and model for the Western River Expedition have been filed away in the Imagineering Research Library.