#Disney's Discovery Island, which preceded DAK, just past end of Contemporary dock. RetroWDW didn’t find any solid evidence of anyone named Raz living on the island during the dates usually specified however, the site theorizes that “Raz” could be a corruption of “Riles” - that is, “Riles Island” could very well have become “Raz Island” due to a misunderstanding or something of the sort as time went on. After that sale, made in 1887 to a Charles Lackey, it was sold again in 1903 to Peter Keen, and then again in 1906 to Joel Riles. Plant’s railway development company, the Plant Investment Company, in 1884 as part of a larger parcel of land, the island was sold off again just a few years later, according to RetroWDW.

The source typically cited for this piece of information is Jeff Kurtti’s 1996 book Since The World Began, which recounts the first 25 years of Walt Disney World’s history however, the website RetroWDW traced the paper trail of the island’s ownership and found something a little different. The mythology of the place often sees it referred to as having once been known as “Raz Island,” supposedly for the name of a family who lived on it from 1900 to 1937 whether that’s actually the case, though, remains to be seen. The land that would eventually become Discovery Island is a natural island - not a human-made one - and, as such, existed long before Disney got to it. You just might not have known what it was. From a video depicting Discovery Island in 2018. If you’ve ever crossed Bay Lake - or simply sat on the shores of it, looking out from the Contemporary Resort, Wilderness Lodge, or the Fort Wilderness campgrounds - you’ve seen the abandoned remains of Discovery Island.

Not the one at Animal Kingdom the one in the middle of Bay Lake. Take Discovery Island at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, for instance. What’s more, a surprising number of them are hidden in plain sight. If you’ve ever wondered why there are so many creepypasta stories about alleged abandoned spaces in and around the Disney parks - well, there actually is a reason for it: There are abandoned spaces in and around the Disney parks - quite a few of them, in fact.

Abandoned disney park