Disney's America: a $650M history theme park cancelled ten months after announcement

On 11 November 1993 Disney announced Disney's America, a US-history theme park at Haymarket, Virginia — about five miles from Manassas National Battlefield Park and 35 miles west of Washington. The plan: $650 million in investment, 11 million visitors a year, 125–185 acres of park inside 3,000 acres Disney had bought or held options on, plus a request for $150 million from Virginia for roads and infrastructure.

Opposition organised fast. Protect Historic America, whose backers included historians David McCullough, Shelby Foote and Doris Kearns Goodwin, argued the park would trivialise history beside a Civil War battlefield; opponents spent over $2 million on campaigns against it. In June 1994 the House of Representatives introduced a resolution opposing the park, and a Senate committee held hearings on traffic, sewage and environmental impact.

Disney cancelled the project on 28 September 1994, ten months after the announcement, citing the opposition, doubts about winter-season profitability, losses at Disneyland Paris and shaken leadership after Frank Wells died in April and Michael Eisner underwent bypass surgery in July. Disney put its 600 acquired acres up for sale in March 1995; the land became housing developments.