Happy birthday to The Walt Disney Company! Today, October 16, 2026, marks the Disney 103rd birthday, and the story behind it is a scrappy one. Before there was a castle, a mouse or a single theme park, there was a 21-year-old cartoonist with a failed studio, a first-class train ticket and a very big idea.
A Rough Start in Kansas City
As 1923 began, Walt Disney was not exactly on top of the world. His Kansas City animation studio, Laugh-O-gram Films, was sinking fast. The company that had been funding his animated fairy tales went under, his artists drifted away, and Walt reportedly slept in his office and scraped by on credit at the café downstairs.
Even so, he kept dreaming up new ideas. His latest was a flip on the popular “Out of the Inkwell” cartoons: instead of a cartoon character running wild in the real world, Walt wanted to put a live-action little girl into an all-cartoon world. He pitched the concept, called Alice in Cartoonland, to New York distributor Margaret Winkler, who showed interest. The money ran out before the film was done, though, and his brother Roy, then recovering from tuberculosis in a Los Angeles veterans hospital, told him it was time to get out of there.
First Class to California
Walt declared bankruptcy and headed west in July 1923. Even without much money, he splurged on a first-class seat on the Santa Fe California Limited. He later recalled that his clothes did not match, but he was riding first class! As a lifelong train fan, he treated the trip as a thrill.
In Los Angeles he rented a room from his Uncle Robert on Kingswell Avenue in Hollywood. At first Walt wanted to be a live-action movie director, not a cartoonist, and he hung around studios watching how scenes were staged. When no one hired him, he went back to animation. In Uncle Robert’s garage he built a homemade animation stand out of spare lumber and old boxes.
The Telegram That Changed Everything
On August 25, Walt wrote to Margaret Winkler to say he was setting up a new cartoon studio and suggested she look at the unfinished Alice’s Wonderland. It worked. On October 15, Winkler telegraphed with an offer of a contract. Walt rushed to the veterans hospital late that night to show the telegram to Roy and ask him to join in.
The next day, October 16, 1923, Roy checked himself out of the hospital, and Walt signed a contract to make a series of Alice Comedies. Disney’s chief archivist has called it the most important document in the history of The Walt Disney Company. This is the date the company counts as its birthday.
Disney Brothers Studio Opens for Business
With funding from Uncle Robert, Walt rented space in the back of a real estate office and the Disney Brothers Studio was officially in business. By his 22nd birthday on December 5, Alice’s Day at Sea was nearly finished, with Walt drawing all the animation himself, and the short was delivered on December 26. By January 12, 1924, Roy had paid back Uncle Robert, and by mid-February the studio had moved into the storefront next door.
Walt would later say that it all began with a mouse, and he was right. But it truly began in 1923 with a young dreamer who would not give up.
From a Garage to a Global Magic Kingdom
Look at what grew out of that tiny studio. It led to Mickey Mouse, to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 and, eventually, to the parks we love, starting with Disneyland in 1955. If you are planning your own celebration, check out our guide to celebrating the 100th anniversary of Winnie the Pooh at Disney World and Disneyland.
So raise a Mickey bar today for the Disney 103rd birthday, and share your favorite Disney memory in the comments. 🎂
