PARTY TIME AT DISNEY WORLD: MICKEY MOUSE AND GANG PROVIDE 40,000 JOBS IN CENTRAL FLORIDA

There's a party going on all over the "World" -- and the world is invited.

The 15-month celebration of Walt Disney World's 25th birthday began in October and will last all year.

A quarter-century ago, Orlando and Orange County in Florida were known as a large shipping center for citrus fruits.

Manufacturing in the 500,000 population metropolitan area includes Orange, Lake, Seminole and Oseola counties concentrated heavily on shipping cartons, plastic and paper bags.

Orlando has 90,000 residents.

That was in 1970.

Then, along came a mouse named Mickey.

Orlando and its metropolitan area still ship tons of citrus fruits each year, but the focus of the city has changed. The population has changed. Employment has changed. Orlando is a Magic Kingdom of prosperity that appears nowhere near ending.

Population totals for the four-county metropolitan area have more than doubled, to about 1.1 million. Orlando's population has doubled, to 182,500. It is the fastest-growing city in the United States.

A single employer provides about 40 percent of the jobs in the immediate Orlando area.

Walt Disney World now employs more than 40,000 people to produce its magic in Orange County.

Disney World opened in October 1971 with the relatively small Magic Kingdom. There were 41 adventures on a 100-acre site, highlighted by the 18-story, 185-foot-high Cinderella Castle, which dwarfed the Disneyland castle, which opened in Anaheim, Calif., some 16 years earlier.

Without a doubt, Walt Disney World has made Orlando not just a dot on the map, but a major destination that annually attracts visitors from throughout the world.

More than 36 million visitors a year flock into the Orlando area, pumping more than $15 billion into the economy. The majority of the visitors, officials agree, were en route to Disney World, which averages about 100,000 visitors a day. Those total figures are expected to grow to 45 million by the new millennium.

Some interesting tourism facts were revealed in a recent study commissioned by convention and visitors bureaus throughout the area and conducted by Fishkind & Association Inc.:

Since Disney World opened, Central Florida has become the most popular destination in the world, with more than 66 attractions, 86,000 hotel rooms and 2,300 restaurants. Orlando has a work force of more than 723,000, and tourism provides the lion's share of those jobs. The entire four-county area has an unemployment rate near 4 percent.

Disney World has proven to be a great corporate citizen, said Jayne Telesca Behrle, of the Orlando/Orange County CVB. Disney sponsored the "kids town" display for the Orlando Science Center, and the company has a long list of projects to which it contributed.

When Disney World opened, the Disney people placed all of the new amusement park's 1,500 employees in front of the Cinderella Castle for a Life magazine cover shot.

The new $400 million vacation resort among the pine flats included Spanish moss on the Swiss Family Robinson Tree, not vinyl leaves such as those on the 16-year-old Disneyland.

Cinderella Castle was twice as tall as the castle at Anaheim, and the spacious 27,400 acres of Disney World actually made the smaller 200-acre Disneyland appear as a miniature.

In fact, word had it that Disneyland could have been placed on one of the Disney World multi-car parking lots, with some room to spare.

Twenty-five years ago, the Magic Kingdom had two Disney-run hotels built, with three more on the planning board, and a transit system to shuttle the expected 10 million visitors around.

Today, Disney World is 30,000-acre entertainment and recreation center featuring three theme parks.

The Magic Kingdom employs more than 13,100 people, EPCOT employs more than 11,500 and Disney-MGM employs almost 10,000.

Other Disney operations -- three water adventure parks, 14 resort hotels, 99 holes of golf on six courses and an entertainment-shopping-dining complex encompassing Pleasure Island, Disney Village marketplace and Disney's West Side, provide thousands of other jobs.

It takes more than 40,000 cast members to make the entire complex go.

That will grow this summer.

Already under construction is a 200-acre Disney's Complete Sports Community, which will become a reality in the spring at Disney's Wide World of Sports.

The Atlanta Braves will make the new complex their spring training home, and a major amateur organization, The Amateur Athletic Union, has relocated to Orlando in anticipation of the opportunity the facility will provide for many of the more than 100 championship events presented by the AAU each year.

The renowned Harlem Globetrotters will make the complex its training site.

The Sports Community will include a 7,500-seat ballpark, plus a baseball quadraplex, and a 5,000-seat fieldhouse, which can be converted into 11 tennis courts, or multipurpose playing courts for international soccer or a track and field stadium.

Disney World's nearby airport is one of the 25 busiest airport in the world.

In 1970, the Orlando Airport handled 1.05 million passengers. Twenty-five years later, more than 22 million passengers passed through the turnstiles

"Orlando has grown tremendously," said Michelle Birkman of the CVB research department.

In 1970, a total of 303 conventions were held in the Orlando area, with 2,450 delegates, said Birkman. In 1995, 17,975 conventions were held, accounting for more than 2.6 million delegates.

The area features more than 600,000 square feet of convention facilities.

What's next?

A General Motors Test Track, which takes guests behind the scenes of automobile testings, Coronado Springs Resort, another Disney convention hotel with 1,900 rooms, and the sports complex, all scheduled for 1997 openings.

There's more:

Disney's Animal Kingdom, a new kind of live-action adventure park, five times the size of Magic Kingdom, will open in 1998, and Disney Cruise Lines, featuring two mega cruise ships based in Port Canaveral. The first ship, "Disney Magic" is scheduled to sail in January. The Disney Wonder will launch in November 1998.

And on and on!

All this, and much more, was the dream of a young man who was raised in Missouri.

Walt Disney was born in Chicago, but his family moved to Missouri and he spent most of his boyhood on a farm near Marceline. Disney studied art in Chicago, and at age 19 helped make cartoon advertisements with a Kansas City film advertising company.

Disney wanted to become a filmmaker. In 1923, he moved to Los Angeles. Although he failed to become a filmmaker, he set up a studio in his garage and started drawing movie cartoons. Mickey Mouse was Disney's first big success, and in 1928, he did produce a short cartoon featuring Mickey.

The rest is history. Disneyland opened in Anaheim in the mid-1950s. Following Disney's death in 1966, the company carried on his work, which had already started in the creation of Disney World in Orlando.

Want more information on the Disney World party? Contact your travel agent or visit the Disney Home Page at www.disneyworld.com on the World Wide Web.