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For years, I've read online that the meandering brown path running through Liberty Square is supposed to represent poop, thrown out of windows from chamberpots to settle in the street. Something seemed off though, but I couldn't put it together until tonight. Here's some history
Herb Ryman did A LOT of concept art for Liberty Square. He'd been messing around with this concept since the 1950s for Disneyland. Look at the ground in these renderings. There's not a lot of poop, but there is something in all of them that's very consistent: cobblestone roads.
By the time of the American revolution, cobblestone and other kinds of paved roads were very common in American Cities. Some of them still exist, although a lot were replaced in the 1800s. http://www.archipedianewengland.org/1600-1699/historic-paving-and-sidewalks-in-new-england/ https://www.historiceuropeancobblestone.com/cobblestone-streets-philadelphia-pennsylvania/
Another thing that doesn't make much sense is the idea that the refined colonists of Dr. Franklin's time would be filling the streets of Philadephia with their excrement. It turns out that homes & taverns throughout Philadelphia all had private toilets. https://www.history.com/news/historic-toilets-tell-the-tale-of-philadelphias-revolutionary-history
You can even visit the site of Benjamin Franklin's privy pit. https://toilet-guru.com/revolutionUSA.php
While the early colonists (1600s) may have thrown the contents of their chamber pots in the streets, by the 1700s this practice was dwindling. New York City enacted laws by 1720 to stop the practice entirely.
The other part of this mystery is why I never noticed this brown river before when I'd visited the parks yearly since 1972. It turns out, it's because it wasn't there. At @RetroWDW we collect and scan photos of the parks, and here's Liberty Square in 1972 with a COBBLESTONE path.
Here's a shot from 1992, and it appears that the older cobblestone was replaced by brick. Maybe the cobblestone got too worn down.
So why a cobblestone path? Here's a theory: the designers would have liked to have paved all of Liberty Square in cobblestone, but it would have been a nightmare for people in wheelchairs and kids in strollers. So they put a little bit of it down to give the impression of it.
That way, it wouldn't be annoying, but it gave a visual indicator that it was there. A nice, simple solution. Sometime in the 2000s, I don't know when yet, apparently somebody gave up on maintaining the stone and ripped it out, filling it in with brown cement. Who knows why.
Who would add a river of poop to the Magic Kingdom. That's straight-up gross! Budget maintenance? That sounds a lot more plausible. But remember that when the Magic Kingdom opened, they wanted you to walk on a little cobblestone, for authenticity's sake.
So. Much. Cobblestone.
Of course, @TomKMorris knows exactly why the stones were removed, which is most appreciated. https://twitter.com/TomKMorris/status/1278502725743853569?s=20
