 
July 1955 – July 1957
LOCATION
Main Street USA – Bluebird Shoes couldn’t have asked for a better spot on Main Street. The tiny shop overlooked the castle on the eastern side of the street, next to the Kodak shop. Today, this space is part of two different shops: the Silhouette Studio and Crystal Arts.
EXPERIENCE
Details:
- Merchandise – Juniors size shoes
- Unique Features – marquee on the awning
Bluebird Shoes For Children has been all but forgotten in the Disney history books. This shop catered specifically to children, selling all kinds of shoes for both girls and boys. The shop wasn’t big enough to offer much other merchandise, but its prime location made up for the lack of square footage.
CLOSURE
Have you ever had the urge to go shoe shopping for your kids during a trip to an amusement park? Yeah, neither did Disneyland visitors in the 50s. Bluebird Shoes For Children was never a popular shop on Main Street, and with such a great location, there was no way Disney would keep it around. Bluebird Shoes closed just two years after opening, quickly replaced by various different connecting shops along Main Street.
TRIVIA
Bluebird Shoes has the distinction of being the only Disney shop to ever sell merchandise exclusively for children.
Interesting! I really like how you dig into the details of the park history. So I apparently missed Bluebird Shoes in my early childhood visit. But we did go to Silhouette Studio and the artist cut out some amazing profiles of my parents and I. They hung for many years in my parents’ bedroom and now hang in my own home. Any idea who the artist in residence was in summer of 1958? I have a vague memory of a middle-aged man, but that’s it.
Thanks, John! Park history is so fascinating to me. So much has happened in such a short time. As for your question – I couldn’t find any info about a specific artist in residence in 1958, but I did find a short article from the OC Register you might find interesting: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/artists-368508-disneyland-fellows.html.