Disneyland's Haunted Houses

The Egyptians were one of the first people to start doing things that would later be involved in the haunted houses that we love so much today. Going through time starting with the Egyptians and ending with the year of 2015 haunted houses have evolved so much and so has the scare factor. Throughout the years there has always been a need for things that are scary or haunted. Weather is be because you need to keep people out of a place that is sacred, for the entertainment of others, or just to be able to scare people around Halloween. In 1915 the first haunted house was built and allowed people to enter if they dared. Since then more and more houses have popped up around the world, along with theme parks featuring the horror of the haunting, mazes that trap you with the monsters, hayrides going through the monsters

In 1915 the Orton and Spooner Ghost House was opened, this is the very first recorded haunted house. Then Walt Disney opened Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion in 1969. This was the first haunted attraction at Disneyland and the first haunted attractions that you had to ride through. You would be placed in buggy carts that would take you around to the different scenes like: the sea captain, a ghostly wedding party, transforming portraits, and the headless horseman.

The first book explaining how to create a haunted house was published in 1975 by Jim Gould and Tom Hiligoss from Bloomington, Illinois. This book included ideas for the scenes of the house, marketing strategies, and details for creating different special FX makeup and prosthetics. Hiligoss and Gould were known as the first haunted house experirts and later opened their own company, The Haunted House Company. They sold masks, lighting, costums, marketing material and their own special FXs. The company was the first of its kind, but soon would not be the only