This Is Not Your Normal Wild West

When Disneyland Paris was born, there were many challenges that faced the Imagineers who were in charge. They had to figure out what the guests would want to see, and where they would want to travel when they entered the park.
The environment Disney was entering by building Euro Disney was very different to that of Florida or California. This meant that decisions had to be taken as to how the Lands of the Park would be conceived. Frontierland was a relatively easy decision, as described by Imagineer Tony Baxter in the Art of Walt Disney.

"Rethinking the Old West, for example, Walt has visualised it as an idyllic, pastoral Mississippi River landscape, where two boys - Tom and Huck - could run away to an island... But Europeans are looking for something completely different. They take serenity and pastoral beauty for granted. When they think of the Old West, they think of the wild West. An exciting energetic place. We realised that our EuroDisney Frontierland would have to reflect that."

The Art of Walt Disney, Christopher Finch, p441

This reflects why there is no Tom and Huck island in Paris's Frontierland, and why one of the main thrill rides of the Park is situated in this land. It also explains the differences in the Haunted Mansion, or Phantom Manor, as we have discussed previously on this blog. As Tony Baxter continues:

"A sinister, Western land-baron style...and we changed the ride itself so that instead of ending in a Gothic graveyard it ends in a California ghost town, with coyotes baying at the moon and ghost riders in the sky"

The Art of Walt Disney, p443