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Using Disneyland to sell competing brands of sugar? This might seem like a particularly odd topic for a Yesterland article. Vacationland—not to be confused with the Vacationland RV Park at Disneyland—was a magazine published by Disneyland from the late 1950s through the early 1980s and distributed for free through area hotels and motels. Somehow, two copies of Vacationland from the 1960s recently wound up at Funky Finds Vintage & Retro, a shop in Des Moines, Iowa. Thanks to a kind gift from a Funky Finds customer, those magazines are now mine. Some of the editorial content and artwork in Vacationland overlapped with Disney News, the magazine of Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom Club. But Vacationland had something that Disney News didn’t have—lots of advertising. Two of those ads inspired today’s Yesterland article.
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Scanned covers © Walt Disney Productions Summer 1962 and Summer 1968 |
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You might expect ads for Southern California restaurants and tourist attractions in Vacationland. You would be right. The tourist attractions included Japanese Deer Park, New Santa’s Village, Alligator Farm, Movieland Wax Museum, and thoroughbred racing at Hollywood Park. |
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There are also full-page ads from national advertisers including United Airlines (“the Official Airline of Disneyland”) and Dolly Madison (“Instant adventure in good eating”). And then there’s sugar. |
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Scan from Vacationland © 1962 Walt Disney Productions Full-page ad for Spreckels Sugar in the Summer 1962 issue of Vacationland |
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According to the ad, “Spreckels Sugar is used exclusively at Disneyland.” The awkward wording suggested that Spreckels Sugar was used only at Disneyland—and nowhere else. Of course, that’s not what the ad writer meant. In Vacationland the following year, the wording had changed to, “Disneyland uses Spreckels Sugar exclusively.” That’s much better, although nitpickers could still observe that Disneyland used a lot of other things in addition to Spreckels Sugar, just not any other sugar. But was that even true? Disneyland guests consumed vast amounts of sugar in the form of Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola, and Carnation Ice Cream. It was unlikely that they were all made with Spreckels Sugar. It would have been so much easier just to be the Official Sugar of Disneyland. That distinction would go to C and H Sugar in 1965. |
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Scan from Vacationland © 1968 Walt Disney Productions Full-page ad for C and H Sugar in the Summer 1968 issue of Vacationland |
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An ad in the Summer 1968 issue of Vacationland made it clear: “C and H is the official sugar of Disneyland.” Oddly, both Spreckels (“Westerners are sweet on Spreckels Sugar”) and C and H (“and on all Main Streets of Western America”) seemed to exclude the American Midwest and the American East intentionally. And then there’s the line, “Be sure to visit the C and H Sugar Corner when you visit Disneyland.” Even those who visited Disneyland frequently in the late 1960s might be unable to explain what and where C and H Sugar Corner was. Other corners are easier to remember or are still around—INA Carefree Corner, Coca-Cola Refreshment Corner, Art Corner, and Pooh Corner come to mind. But C and H Sugar Corner? |
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© 1967 Walt Disney Productions Your Guide to Disneyland, 1967 |
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Checking old guide books, C and H Sugar Corner was inside Swift’s Market House, number 26 on the map below. |
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© 1967 Walt Disney Productions Main Street, U.S.A. in 1967 |
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The Shops and Stores section of the guide book provided this description: Swift’s Market House — An old-fashioned general store complete to cider and dill pickles. Includes C & H Sugar Corner, featuring a variety of penny candies. Also, Sunsweet Growers displays a variety of dried fruits. Photos from the time, including a stereoscopic View-Master image, showed large C and H Sugar signs inside the store. Apparently, the contract was only for five years. By Fall 1970, C and H Sugar Corner was gone from the Market House. Since September 23, 2013, the primary use of sugar at the Market House has been to sweeten Starbucks coffee. |
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© 2017 Werner Weiss — Disclaimers, Copyright, and Trademarks Updated November 10, 2017. |
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, Curator of Yesterland, November 10, 2017
