History of Florida to use I-75, and settled along the west coast of Florida. Florida's first theme parks were developed in the 1930s and included Cypress Gardens (1936) near Winter Haven, and Marineland (1938) near St. Augustine. Disney selected Orlando over several other sites for an updated and expanded version of their Disneyland Park in California. In 1971, the Magic Kingdom, the first component of the resort, opened and became Florida's best-known attraction, attracting tens of millions of visitors a year. It stimulated the development of other attractions, as well as large tracts of housing and related businesses. The Orlando area became an
Magic Kingdom film. In 2017, the park hosted 20.450 million visitors, making it the most visited theme park in the world for the twelfth consecutive year and the most visited theme park in North America for at least the past eighteen years. Although Walt Disney had been highly involved in planning the Florida Project, he passed away before he could see the vision through. After Walt's death, Walt Disney Productions began construction on Magic Kingdom and the entire resort in 1967. The park was built as a larger, improved version of Disneyland Park in California. There are several anecdotes regarding some of