Born in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, McKim moved to southern California in 1935 and, a short time later, visited a cousin who worked at the MGM studios. A casting director spotted him and quickly started putting him in films. “He was one of the best-remembered western child actors of the 1930s and ’40s,” said film historian Boyd Magers. “He had a great smile and just that all-American, freckled-face look that was perfect for those westerns of that era.”
McKim then fought in World War II and Korea, where he earned the Distinguished Service Cross. But it was his third career that had the most impact: in 1954 he was hired by Walt E Disney Enterprises (later known as Walt Disney Imagineering), where as their Master Map Maker he drew the first maps of a new company attraction: Disneyland. Other McKim sketches were used to help design the park, especially Main Street and Frontierland. He stayed with the company for 32 years, but came out of retirement to draw maps for Disneyland Paris. McKim died July 9 from heart failure — at the hospital around the corner from Disney’s Burbank offices. He was 79.