Frontier Town was one of the first theme parks ever to open in the United States, in 1952, capitalizing on the old west folklore that was then so popular with American children. (There were amusement parks since the turn of the last century, but not themed to one particular canon.) It finally closed long after Westerns fell out of fashion, in 1998, and most of its contents were auctioned off in 2004. This was a particularly strange exploration for me, having been there and vaguely remembering it from a day there in 1996 (I didn’t like it much at the time, I remember that much).
This was once an arena with rodeo and cops-and-robbers shows in it:
Frontier industry. One of the main attractions was a functional early 1800s museum village, with a saw mill, blacksmith, one room schoolhouse, etc.
This giant hammer did … something. We weren’t able to figure out what a saw mill would need it for.
Frontier Town’s main street
An oxymoron in those days!
Nature is the frontier’s only law
Apparently a gas station moved in at some point
More photos from the weekend here.