New Aerial Images Reveal Fort Langhorn Demolition for Disney World's Cars-Themed Piston Peak

Gallery / 6 Photos
Piston Peak Construction Site - October 13, 2025

Posted: Tuesday October 14, 2025 7:30am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

New aerial photos from @bioreconstruct give us a fresh look at the ongoing work in Magic Kingdom's Frontierland, where demolition is now visibly underway at Fort Langhorn on Tom Sawyer Island.

Photo by @bioreconstruct

Fort Langhorn Demolition. Photo by @bioreconstruct

In the latest images, much of the fort structure has been demolished, leaving behind piles of debris and construction equipment visible around the former site.

Fort Langhorn Demolition. Photo by @bioreconstruct

The area, once home to one of the island's key landmarks, is being cleared as part of the transformation to make way for Disney's new Cars-themed expansion, which will completely reimagine the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island areas into the newly announced Piston Peak National Park.

The removal of Fort Langhorn follows months of prep work across the island, with Walt Disney Imagineering crews tagging props for preservation or disposal and the river itself completely drained.

Photo by @bioreconstruct

This work is part of the largest expansion in Magic Kingdom history, which will include the Cars-themed land and a Disney Villains area located beyond Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

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JD801 day ago

What I find most interesting is the back half of ROA and beyond where the train tracks used to be. A lot more clearing than I thought. Might be for back of house ops, but it also may be for Villains and the train will go under/through something like Tron.

BrianLo1 day ago

That’s 15 months ago. Most of what we’ve seen of Pandora at DCA was only 15 months into development: in totality. I expect when we see Villains again it will be representative of the final product. Which is perhaps why it wasn’t shown off at Destination.

Timothy_Q1 day ago

The new path will alleviate congestion and facilitate traffic between BTMR/TBA and Fantasyland during parades Moving the parade to the new path would pretty much cancel all that out, and also leave Villains completely cut off

Smiley/OCD2 days ago

Should’ve used Queen “Another One Bites the Dust”…

networkpro2 days ago

By "upper" are you referring to the Northern portion of the former Rivers of America ?

EagleScout6102 days ago

https://blogmickey.com/2025/11/tree-clearing-tom-sawyer-island-demolition/ New photos from yesterday

jah49554 days ago

I know...I was daydreaming too :)

TrainsOfDisney4 days ago

I meant it will take that many years for Disney to allow us to see plans and let people talk about it.

dmw4 days ago

I am really looking forward to the path behind piston peak that connects BTMRR and HM. I wonder if the parade route will use this new path, or continue along Frontierland.

jah49554 days ago

hopefully that will be well-used in much-less than 20 years

TrainsOfDisney4 days ago

It also seems silly to completely destroy a major iconic area of the worlds most visited theme park and not use the areas beyond big thunder and the RR. But here we are. I’m hoping in 20 or so years we can see the plans that could have been….. like seeing mystic harbor plans for Disneyland. Would be fun to dream of what we almost got.

TrainsOfDisney5 days ago

I don’t think that space is being used for this expansion - but if it is…. They still need to fill the river. It would be easier to clear that once the river is filled and it’s all level.

Coaster Lover5 days ago

Disney's no fool. They know that full grown trees don't just happen overnight but are critical to making any land feel established. If they can't stay where they are, any tree healthy enough will be transplanted somewhere else on property.

Marc Davis Fan5 days ago

Sorry for being unclear. I realize that some of the already-cleared area will be at least where part of the Villains land will sit. The question is, are they already clearing the upper portion of the river in order to more easily the access the future Cars area, or is it also to actually begin Villains work? And if it's the latter, is there anything noteworthy about the fact that they haven't yet cleared the area north of HM/iasw?