November 22, 1996
Disney rumor just that: no mouse here
LANCE MARTIN
and ROBERT MOHL
Herald News Staff
JACKSON -- Local officials aren't crooning "Zippity Doo-Dah" or trying on
mouse ears to celebrate Disney's arrival in the Roanoke Valley.
And there's a good reason why they're not celebrating. The Magic Kingdom
isn't coming here to build a history theme park.
"I don't know where those rumors started," Northampton County Manager Earl
Daniels said. "No land has been purchased."
Ever since Disney dropped plans to build a historical theme park in Virginia,
the word has buzzed around that the entertainment giant has its eye on
Northampton.
That might be nice, but everyone who would know says there is nothing to it.
A Disney spokesman said it was company policy not to comment on rumors, but
said a North Carolina theme park wasn't likely.
"I haven't heard the first word about it," said Bill Warren, manager of
public affairs for Disney. Rumors of Disney setting up shop somewhere are common,
he said, but the company is now focused on its Orlando site.
"We have over 29,000 acres down here and only a third of it is developed,"
Warren said. "We have a full plate."
"These things are expensive and you need a huge base of tourists from which
to draw," he added. "North Carolina is my choice of a place to go, but it doesn't
have the base."
Daniels said the only correspondence the county has had with Disney was about
two years ago. The county said it would welcome Disney after the entertainment
empire's plan to build a historical theme park in Manassas, Va., fell through.
Historians mounted a campaign against that plan because they said it would have
ruined the Civil War battlefield site.
"We got a nice letter back, but in effect they said they were still
interested in Virginia," Daniels said today.
Rocky Lane, director of the Halifax Development Commission, said there had
been no big transactions in Halifax and Northampton.
"I can assure you Disney has not contacted us," Lane said this morning. "If
Disney were looking to build here I don't think I'd know, I don't think you'd
know, I don't think anybody would know it."
(
geocities.com/rjmohl)