Mell Kilpatrick (1902-1962)
Mell Kilpatrick's passion for photography started as a hobby. Armed with his "Weegee" style camera, Mell gravitated towards the streets, tracking police calls and documenting everything from car accidents to crime scenes. He became a familiar figure to the various police departments and insurance companies serving Orange County.
His career as a news photographer begain in 1948 and he eventually became the chief photographer for the Santa Ana Register. As one of Orange County’s best-known cameramen, he covered Orange County in every possible manner — by air, on foot, by car, and even by boat. Determined never to miss a photo opportunity, he even attached a small camera to the dashboard of his car pointing out the front windshield!
He recorded a nascent Orange County where Interstate 5 was a meandering state highway (then called Highway 101) and vast tracts of orange groves were flattened one day and built up the next. It was from these groves that Orange County’s most defining monument rose… Disneyland. And Mell was there to chronicle its growth.
Mell worked relentlessly to capture on film Walt Disney’s dream. He climbed atop scaffolding, crawled into tunnels, even hung out of a light plane 5,000 feet above Disneyland to snap the perfect shot. Like any momentous project, Disneyland under construction was sometimes chaotic and many of the features, such as a darkroom, were low priority. When Mell found out that Walt needed a local place to develop staff photos, he opened his darkroom to official Disney photographers. The park’s first images were developed in Mell’s Santa Ana darkroom.
Walt often called Mell to photograph special days during construction, as well as granting him unlimited access to Disneyland. Along with dozens of the nation’s photographers, Mell was invited to Disneyland’s press premiere on July 17, 1955, as well as Disneyland’s golden opening day, July 18, 1955. History buff that he was, Mell saved every piece of memorabilia from that day, including the official Disneyland Press Kit.
Mell was only sixty years old in 1962 when a heart attack claimed his life. His prized darkroom was locked and left undisturbed for thirty years. Before her death in the 1990s, Mell’s widow gave her granddaughter, Carlene Thie, the full collection of his negatives and photographs. In 2002 Carlene opened Ape Pen Publishing Company and produced the first of five books featuring the spectacular vintage Disneyland photography of her grandfather.
Thanks to Mell Kilpatrick, these images of the Park being built — literally from the ground up — will last forever.
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