What Was Westcot? The Lost Second Gate of the Disneyland Resort

Disneyland's Never Built Westcot

In the 1990s, Disney was beginning to explore the possibility of expanding Disneyland from one park into a resort experience. Walt Disney World had been seeing growing success as a resort, and the idea of transferring this to Disneyland was appealing to the company leadership. Before Disney California Adventure, the plan that came closest to becoming a reality was Westcot.

Westcot was a plan to bring a version of Epcot Center to the west coast, with its name being a combination of the original park's name and the word west. But it would not have been an exact clone of the original park.

Designed to be built on Disneyland's parking lot, this park would have redesigned the concept of Epcot to work within a smaller area of land, as Epcot's sprawling layout would simply not work in the area Disney had available. This meant approaching Future World and World Showcase in a different way.

In the World Showcase, this reimagined approach to Epcot meant that individual countries would not be featured to the same extent as they were in the original park. Instead, various regions and continents would be explored, with smaller areas within each featuring countries. There simply was not enough room for individual countries, so this allowed for more cultures to be showcased within the allotted space.

Westcot's Future World also would have been different than in Epcot, including potentially not being called Future World. Many of the pavilions would be redesigned to fit in a smaller space with one another, and potentially even being located inside a larger interconnected pavilion.

One of the most massive changes however would have been the park's centerpiece. Their clone of the icon of Epcot, Spaceship Earth, would have been called Spacestation Earth, and it was planned to be larger than Spaceship Earth. It would have been the centerpiece of the park being located between the two lands rather than merely at the entrance, although due to the layout of the park the entrance would still be nearby.

While based on Epcot, this would have been a very different park.

This article is the first of a planned series that will explore the various rides, lands, and other elements that would have been a part of the Westcot expansion plan for the Disneyland Resort. Be sure to check back here every Tuesday to continue exploring this lost park of the Disneyland Resort. To make sure you remember, you can follow our Twitter or Facebook for reminders for all our latest articles.