When Walt Disney first began his "Project Winter" in the mid-1960s, his shell companies purchased the initial 27,443 acres of Central Florida swampland for an average price of about $180 to $200 per acre, totaling roughly $5 million. To keep the project secret and prevent land prices from skyrocketing, Disney used several fake entities like "Tomahawk Properties" and "Latin-American Development" to buy up the scrub forest and groves in Orange and Osceola counties. Once the secret was out in October 1965, land prices surged by over 1,000%, with some final parcels costing as much as $80,000 per acre. Over the decades, The Walt Disney Company has continued to expand its holdings, including a major 2018 purchase of 965 acres for $23 million. Today, the Walt Disney World Resort spans approximately 47 square miles (about 30,000 acres). Adjusting that original 1960s $5 million investment for 2026 inflation, the initial land grab was a legendary bargain that provided the "blessing of size" needed to build the world's largest vacation destination without the encroachment of outside development.