This Charming Colorado College Town Inspired Disneyland's Iconic Main Street

Colorado's fourth-largest city, Fort Collins, is over 1,000 miles from California's Disneyland, but its historic downtown area certainly feels much closer in spirit. This is because downtown Fort Collins, aka "Old Town," served as one of the key inspirations for Main Street, USA, in Disneyland. As the home of Colorado State University, Fort Collins is also a thriving college town that bills itself as the state's craft beer capital.

On Main Street, USA, you're more likely to find coffee, baked goods, and nostalgia for small-town America. Since Disneyland's grand opening in 1955, Main Street has been the first themed "land" that guests encounter upon entering the Happiest Place on Earth. Cloned across several Disney parks worldwide, it's perhaps the most well-known — or well-trodden — land since you have to pass through it before you reach any other area. Whether you visit Florida's Magic Kingdom, Disneyland Paris, or Hong Kong Disneyland, you'll be funneled into the park through Main Street.

A 1998 New York Times article detailed how Main Street was primarily inspired by two places: Walt Disney's hometown of Marceline, Missouri, and art director Harper Goff's birthplace of Fort Collins. If you're unfamiliar with Goff's name, he's the Disney Legend who helped design the Jungle Cruise ride and Epcot's World Showcase. He also worked as a set designer and art director on the classic movies "Casablanca" and "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." In addition, he designed the Nautilus submarine in Disney's first U.S. live-action film, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (which, in turn, inspired a popular, now-defunct Magic Kingdom attraction).

Walt Disney himself never visited Fort Collins, but he did use it as a visual reference thanks to Harper Goff. In a 1992 "E" Ticket magazine interview (via Fort Collins History Connection), Goff explained, "When I started working on Main Street, I had photographs of Fort Collins taken. I showed them to Walt and he liked them very much. Disneyland's City Hall was copied from Fort Collins... so was the Bank building and some of the others."

In the Old Town district of Fort Collins, you'll see a marker identifying it as a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. Instead of Main Street's ragtime piano player, what you'll see here is a colorful array of painted outdoor pianos. These instruments (which are tuned and playable, if you get the ragtime urge) are part of the city's Art in Public Places program. It includes many unique sculptures and hundreds of murals: some on buildings, others on free-standing transformer cabinets. Follow the recommended walking tour and you can get a 30-minute overview of free public art in places like Tenney Alley.

In 2024, USA Today named Old Town Square one of America's best public squares. Stately buildings like the old firehouse (now a bookstore) and the corner edifice that used to be the Linden Hotel (it's now a mineral shop) feel transported from Main Street. With streetcars restored to their original 1919 appearance, the Fort Collins Trolley also looks like it would be right at home alongside Disneyland's old-fashioned Main Street Vehicles.

Some of Old Town's buildings date to the late 1800s and early 1900s, which puts them in line with Main Street's "turn-of-the-century nostalgia," as Disneyland calls it. However, Old Town isn't the only place in Fort Collins where you can step back in time. At Totally '80s Pizza & Museum, things get retro with a huge collection of pop culture memorabilia from the 1980s. That includes cereal boxes, arcade games, handwritten lyrics to quintessential '80s songs like A-Ha's "Take on Me," and a life-size, carbon-frozen Han Solo from the original "Star Wars" sequels.

It was in the late 1980s that Anheuser-Busch came to Fort Collins and microbreweries like Odell Brewing Co. started opening around town. Today, 7% of America's craft beer and 70% of Colorado's is produced here, giving tourists plenty of options for tasting rooms to visit. At New Belgium Brewing Company, you can sip Fat Tire Ale in one of the biggest craft breweries in the U.S.

Walt Disney's hometown of Marceline, the other key inspiration for Main Street and its railroad station, is on our list of must-visit places for Disney fans (that aren't parks). You can add Fort Collins to that list, though its version of Main Street — Old Town — obviously lacks the vista of a fairytale castle like Cinderella's or Sleeping Beauty's. You'd have to visit these Europe destinations to see the real places that inspired Cinderella Castle. Otherwise, head to Fort Collins for some charming traces of Main Street, USA.