Disneyland Castle

After the extremely negative press from the preview opening, Walt Disney invited attendees back for a private "second day" to experience Disneyland properly. The next day, crowds gathered in line as early as 2:00 am. The first person to buy a ticket and enter the park was David MacPherson with ticket number 2, as Roy O. Disney arranged to pre-purchase ticket number 1 from Curtis Lineberry, the manager of admissions. However, an official picture of Walt Disney and two children, Christine Vess Watkins (age 5) and Michael Schwartner (7), inaccurately identifies them as the first two guests of Disneyland. Both received lifetime passes to Disneyland that day, and MacPherson was awarded one shortly thereafter, which was later expanded to every single Disney-owned park in the world. Approximately 50,000 guests attended the Monday opening day.
In September 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev spent thirteen days in the United States, with two requests: to visit Disneyland and to meet John Wayne, Hollywood's top box-office draw. Due to the Cold War tension and security concerns, he was famously denied an excursion to Disneyland. The Shah of Iran and Empress Farah were invited to Disneyland by Walt Disney in early 1960s. The video of the Shah and Disney riding the Matterhorn roller coaster is available on YouTube. There was moderate controversy over the lack of African American employees. Since 1963, civil rights activists pressured Disneyland to hire black people, with executives responding that they would "consider" the requests. Despite a lack of black employees, the park hired people of Asian descent, like Ty Wong and Bob Kuwahara.
As part of the Casa de Fritos operation at Disneyland, "Doritos" (Spanish for "little golden things") were created at the park to help use old tortillas that were being discarded. The Frito-Lay Company saw the popularity of the item and decided to sell them regionally in 1964, and then nationwide in 1966.
In the late 1990s, work began to expand the one-park, one-hotel property. Disneyland Park, the Disneyland Hotel, the site of the original parking lot, and acquired surrounding properties were earmarked to become part of the Disneyland Resort. At this time, the property saw the addition of the Disney California Adventure theme park, a shopping, dining and entertainment complex named Downtown Disney, a remodeled Disneyland Hotel, the construction of Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, and the acquisition and re-branding of the Pan Pacific Hotel as Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel. At this time, the park was renamed as Disneyland Park to distinguish it from the larger complex under construction. Because the existing parking lot (south of Disneyland) was built upon by these projects, the six-level, 10,250-space Mickey and Friends parking structure was constructed in the northwest corner. At the time of its completion in 2000, it was the largest parking structure in the United States.