Bob Price Foster, a former Disneyland lawyer, spearheaded Project X, negotiating with more than 100 owners across Orange and Osceola counties in 1964‑65. Using a network of nine shell corporations, Disney masked its identity while assembling 27,443 acres, keeping purchase prices below $200 per acre.
The deal cost roughly $5 million, translating to an average of $182 per acre, and covered swamps, forests, and farmlands that were only lightly populated.
Local reporters, tired of the sudden land transfers, traced the transactions and linked them to Disney in October 1965. An Orlando Sentinel exposé forced Walt and Roy Disney to reveal the project publicly alongside Governor Haydon Burns the following month.
The revelation did not stall progress; instead, it accelerated the development of the Magic Kingdom, which opened on October 1, 1971, and laid the groundwork for the Reedy Creek Improvement District that granted Disney unprecedented municipal control.
For farmers like 1940s rancher John McKay, the sale meant the end of a family legacy, but the larger community eventually benefited from new jobs and infrastructure as the resort grew.