I've never been to this tiny town in northern Missouri, but the moment I set foot on Kansas Avenue, I'm hit with a dizzying sense of familiarity.

The street is lined with two-story brick buildings, some fronted with candy-striped awnings. American flags wave from cast iron streetlamps. There's a movie theater and corner cafe, serving fried chicken and ice cream sundaes.

The only thing missing is a costumed mouse.

It's said that Marceline, Mo., childhood home of Walt Disney, helped inspire Main Street USA, the nostalgic avenue leading theme-park guests into Disneyland and its later counterparts in Orlando, Paris and Tokyo, where the area is called World Bazaar.

The resemblance is faint -- Marceline's stores don't have the elaborate gingerbread finishing you'll find in the parks, and there's rarely a crowd -- but still, it's there. And there's no denying Walt Disney's connection to Marceline -- and Marceline's love for Walt Disney.

Just three years ago, the town launched an annual fall festival honoring cartooning in general, and Walt in particular.

I'm visiting for the festival, but the night before the big parade, Kansas Avenue is deserted. I'm the only customer at Susie's Place cafe, housed in a building where Walt Disney's younger sister Ruth once spilled a plate of food that their father, Elias, was not pleased he still had to pay for. Black-and-white pictures of the Disney family hang on the wall.

A half-block away, the Uptown Theatre, where the Disney Co. debuted The Great Locomotive Chase in 1955, is showing Uptown Girls.

Disney lived in Marceline for only five years, from ages 5 to 10. His father wanted to take the family away from what he considered the dangerous influences of Chicago and settled on a town where one of his brothers lived.

"We are the place Walt found the magic," says Kaye Malins, who lives in the Disneys' former home.

Although the family was poor and lived in what was then a crowded farmhouse, the young Walt thought he was in heaven. It was here he saw his first movie and put on his first show -- his mother made him return the money when neighborhood children complained that the content, a cat and dog dressed in costume, lacked in entertainment value.

Visitors come to Marceline (say mar-sell-LEAN) to pay tribute.

"They're arriving on Disney hallowed land," said Richard Switzer, a financial-services adviser whose wife has taught at Walt Disney Elementary School for 23 years. "It really is a pilgrimage for some."

He's everywhere

In Marceline, Walt -- as everyone calls him -- lives on. He is still the friendly man with a mustache who welcomed millions of children to his television show during the 1950s and 1960s. At Marceline's only motel, a framed picture of Disney perches like a shrine on the counter in front of a Mickey Mouse telephone.

The Disney story is well told in the town's museum, the former Santa Fe railroad depot. The museum displays Disney artifacts and papers. Disney's familiar flourishing signature, still the company logo, jumps out from correspondence with family members.

Separate rooms explain the Disney connection to Marceline, and Disney's interest in maintaining it. He donated a theme-park ride to the town. The Midget Autotopia, once an attraction at Disneyland, ran for several years in a Marceline park until maintenance became too difficult and expensive. The museum displays a lemon-yellow car, its motor long silent.

Town as theme park

But Disney had much bigger plans for Marceline. He had hoped to develop his hometown into a theme park devoted to rural American life. During a visit in 1956, he formed a silent partnership to start the so-called Marceline Project.

Rush Johnson, now 77 and president of the Disney museum, said the idea was hatched over a scotch in his basement. Disney was in town for the dedication of a swimming pool at the town's recreational complex (named for Walt), and he stayed at Johnson's home, then one of the few in town with air conditioning.

"He envisioned a working farm," Johnson said. It would be a place to teach children what an acre was and where their food came from.

But the idea died shortly after Disney's death in 1966.

Johnson moved into the Disney home and expanded it carefully, leaving the farmhouse in its original shape by building an addition around it. The whole thing could be removed some day, if history or tourism requires.

Johnson's daughter, who now lives there, has developed part of the property into a free park devoted to Disney. Its two attractions are a tree and a barn. The young Walt used to sit under a cottonwood and muse. He said he practiced "belly botany" there, examining bugs and plants. The Dreaming Tree, as it became known, has been struck by lightning and looks to be in its final years.

The barn is a replica of the original that stood on the property. Disney loved it so much that he had a copy built in California to use as his office. He called it the "Happy Place." In 2001, to honor Disney's 100th birthday, Marceline erected its own replica. Both buildings were purposely constructed with a swayed roof, the way Disney remembered it.

By Larry Bleiberg