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You Are Here: The local Disney connection of the Celebrity Sports Center

"It's just so cool that Mickey Mouse was here for something that Walt Disney owned."
Courtesy David Forsyth

Walt Disney's celebrity friends are what gave Wednesday's "You Are Here" location its name.

The Celebrity Sports Center on S. Colorado Boulevard in Glendale stood from 1959 to 1994 and Walt Disney himself owned it for half of that time.

The Celebrity Sports Center featured an arcade, a pool and 80 bowling lanes.

Local author David Forsyth - who's also written about the local mainstay Lakeside Amusement Park - said wood from the bowling alley is actually now the floor of the Oxford Hotel's bathroom.

"[Walt Disney] didn't want to put his own money into it, so he got a lot of celebrities to help invest with him," Forsyth said. "Jack Benny, Burl Ives, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Spike Jones - just some of them."

Mickey Mouse, Pluto and Goofy all made appearances at the Celebrity Sports Center. Disney World Managers even got their training there.

"[They] chose the Denver area because several surveys Disney commissioned showed Denver was an upcoming area," Forsyth said. "So they settled on the 800 block of Colorado Boulevard. It had been owned by a couple with a veterinarian clinic there."

If you're wondering what's there now - a Home Depot and Whole Foods.

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