About Harper Goff
Harper Goff was born in Fort Collins, Colorado on March 16, 1911. His parents ran the Fort Collins Courier newspaper before heading west to California. Harper started his career as a set designer at Warner Bros. working on films such as “Casablanca” and the Errol Flynn classic “Captain Blood” that inspired “The Goonies” and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series. With one of his watercolors hanging in the White House, Harper’s diverse talents saw no limit as he pioneered camouflage techniques during World War II and played the banjo in “The Firehouse Five Plus Two”, one of America’s most popular bands in the early 1950’s.
Through a chance meeting with Walt Disney in 1951, Harper began working on a secret project that would eventually become Disneyland. As Art Director, Harper defined steampunk with his design of the Nautilus submarine for “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, and further advanced his craft in such films as “The Vikings”, “Fantastic Voyage” and the legendary “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. Through such projects as the California Exposition, Houston’s Astrodome, and the 1964 New York World’s Fair, Harper’s creative reach has influenced generations. His career culminated in his design of World Showcase at EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World.
Harper is buried next to his grandfather in Colorado Springs. He was named a Disney Legend in 1993 and was inducted into the Art Directors Guild’s Hall of Fame in 2014.
The Project
Chad Van Derrick is an author and Disney historian who has spent the last several years researching the life of Harper Goff and his wife Flossie. Discovering Harper’s artwork and personal memorabilia long thought to be lost to time, Chad is currently producing a historical novel on Harper. A successful entrepreneur in the technology sector, Chad and his family lived in Fort Collins where Chad wrote many of Harper’s stories from the celebrated 1883 firehouse, which served as the model for the firehouse on Main Street U.S.A. now replicated in Disney’s theme parks across the globe.
Harper Goff 