Disneyland created the first daily-operating monorail in the western hemisphere and influenced urban design.

Thanks to Walt Disney's emphasis on quality, according to Michael Schwartner, 57, Disneyland's first visitor, California's standards for hotels and for litter-removal rose.

And, of course, Disney's "Imagineers" developed realistic audio-animatronic people and animals and put details into the "lands" and attractions that remain unrivaled. The mine train of Nature's Wonderland wound through red desert with crazily balancing rocks and saguaro cactus shaped like people. When I finally traveled to the American Southwest in my 20s, my first reaction was "This looks just like Disneyland!"

"To me the real Matterhorn was the one in Disneyland," said Ricki Hadow, 52, who grew up in Southern California and now lives in Boulder, Colo. "When I went to Switzerland and saw the one made of rocks and snow, I thought, 'That does look like the real Matterhorn.' "

Charlie Lucke, 58, of Hercules, Calif., who visited from the East Coast at age 9, wrote to say, "When my mother asked one of the security people when the fog might lift, he replied, '10:57 a.m.' He wasn't kidding — it did. We thought Walt Disney was God."

Critics complained about the small number of minority employees, cultural insensitivity in certain attractions, and the ban on men with long hair. Because of the length of his hair in 1964, the Park wouldn't admit Roger McGuinn, who later founded the Byrds. The ban was lifted in the late 1960s, and 30 years later the Park allowed employees to have neatly trimmed moustaches.

Now Indians no longer burn the pioneers' cabin along the Rivers of America, pirates of the Caribbean are less lecherous, and Jungle Cruise skippers fire pistols into the air, not at the hippopotamus.

Canadian John Howard, 46, visiting from Calgary, Alberta, with his children Katie, 11, and Mac, 10, expressed surprise at the extent of Disneyland: "We have an amusement park in Calgary, but it's nothing like this."

Locals Christine Sickler, 38, and her son Nathan, 4, from Anaheim Hills, come to the park about once a month. Nathan will have to wait 12 years for a real driver's license, but in the meantime he can drive on his favorite ride, the Autopia.

"Disneyland is the reason I live in California," Kevin Shannon, 54, of Costa Mesa wrote. "Until I was 8, we lived in Washington. Then we went to Disneyland on vacation. We never went back to Washington. ... When I was in 8th grade, the Honor Roll kids got to go to Disneyland as a reward. My best friend and I didn't want to leave and were very late getting back to the bus! Boy, were the teachers mad. Now, 40 years later, my friend works for Disney as an Imagineer and never has to leave."

In Downtown Disney, I spoke with a young couple with two toddler boys from Fort Richardson, Alaska. The father had just arrived home from Iraq. They had come to Disneyland specifically to try to cheer him up.

Irving Mills, 85, of Sonoma, Calif., first went to the park in 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink of war. "We were impressed," he said, "with the hopefulness of the theme at a time when the United States was less than optimistic about the future."