On this day in 1926, Walt and Roy Disney put down a $400 deposit on a lot at 2719 Hyperion Ave., where they plan to build a new animation studio in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, California.
Their neighbors were a gas station and an organ factory. The new studio included two small offices for Walt and Roy Disney, a camera room, and a large partitioned work area for the animators and ink and paint staff. The building will serve as the Disney’s base for the next fifteen years.
The original Disney Studio had been in the back half of a real estate office on Kingswell Avenue in Hollywood, but soon Walt had enough money to move next door and rent a whole store for his studio. That small studio was sufficient for a couple of years, but the company eventually outgrew it, and Walt had to look elsewhere. He found an ideal piece of property on Hyperion Avenue in Hollywood, built a studio, and in 1926, moved his staff to the new facility.
It was at the Hyperion Studio, after the loss of Oswald, that Walt had to come up with a new character, and that character was Mickey Mouse. With his chief animator, Ub Iwerks, Walt designed the famous mouse and gave him a personality that endeared him to all. Ub animated two Mickey Mouse cartoons, but Walt was unable to sell them because they were silent films, and sound was revolutionizing the movie industry. So, they made a third Mickey Mouse cartoon, this time with fully synchronized sound, and Steamboat Willie opened to rave reviews at the Colony Theater in New York November 18, 1928. A cartoon star, Mickey Mouse, was born. The new character was immediately popular, and, a lengthy series of Mickey Mouse cartoons followed.
As Walt and his animators became more creative and innovative technically and artistically, the studio had to grow to meet the demands of Walt’s vision. During the next four years the original studio building went through several renovations and additions until a two-story building called “Animator’s Building # 1” and a sound stage were added in 1931. Walt and Roy purchased additional plots of land surrounding the studio and built the “Animator’s Building #2/Shorts Building”in 1934, Ink and Paint and Annex buildings in 1935, and a “Features Building” in 1937. Several other smaller buildings were constructed on the property, including a Wurlitzer Organ building, warehouse, film vaults, sound stage monitor room, camera room, and a garage for Mickey Mouse’s car.