Once upon a time, the Adirondacks were filled from one end of Route 9 to the other with amusement parks. Most of them have faded away, others have evolved under the aegis of new ownerships. You might remember some of those classic nams – the Land of Makebelieve, 1000 Animals, Gaslight Village…
In the past, I’ve written about my memories of what was once called Storytown, now known as the Great Escape. In today’s blog post, I want to bring you some memories of Frontier Town.
One of the best resources for history of Frontier Town is Steve Gross’ website. In this site, he talks about how the park first opened in 1952, and that for the next 40 years the park was owned and operated by Art Bensen and his associates. The park was sold in 1983, and it continued to operate under new management until at least 1998.
These are some YouTube clips of memories of Frontier Town; some of them also appear on the Frontiertown.net website.
These are the memories that we hold dear. Memories of cowboys and Indians, rodeos and roundups.
Sadly, this next batch of videos shows what happened to the park in later years. This set of clips, posted to YouTube from 2008 to as recently as last week, show a group of urban explorers as they enter the property and chronicle the decay and collapse of a once-proud theme park.
Sadly, I have no memories of ever visiting Frontier Town – my family always went to Storytown or Gaslight Village. I think one time we did Santa’s Workshop, and maybe 1000 Animals up in Lake Placid. But we never visited Frontier Town, at least not that I can recall.
But I’m sure many of you blog readers either went there at one time in your life. And if you have memories of Frontier Town back in the day, please post them here, or on Steve Gross’ website.
And hopefully those memories are of great times and great adventures – and not of the remnants of a once-vibrant amusement park, now just a shell of rotting buildings off a forgotten Northway exit.
Chuck The Writer 
Great post Chuck. My last visit to Fronteir Town in 1978 for the Boy Scout Camp-O-Ree between American and Canadian troops. I remember one Canuck saying there were still parts of Canada that looked like that (1978 anyway). Went there about 3 times. Along with For Ticonderoga and Fort William Henry, those were my favorite spots.
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I was just there this past Saturday as we were riding the North Hudson trails and ended up here by mistake. My last visit was as a kid in the early 60s. Place scared the crap out of me – our train got held up by robbers and Indians attacked our stage coach. Horrifying experience. I might have been too young. I’ll never forget it though.
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These videos brought back some great memories. My first job was as a Can Can dancer at Frontier Town the summers of 1982 and 1983 and it was the best “job” ever. I met so many great characters during those two summers from the man who announced the rodeo (I believe his name was Clarence Canary) to the Indian Hoop dancers and Wyatt Earp and the cowboys who performed at the rodeo. It is sad that it’s no longer there to be enjoyed by young children today – it was truly a unique experience.
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i went in 1983, i was 3 yrs old, i remember it all, i have also been to gaslight village, storytown, santas workshop.. it was all very memorable, and a great part of my life..
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still tell people about the punishment they had for “bad hombres” who got caught stealing by sitting him on the edge of that 40 foot or so pole and dunked him repeatedly in the man-made pond…and who didn’t love or get scared by being held up while riding the stage-coach by the bandits…..great memories for sure….
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@Garondah – the stagecoach attack scared the pants off me too! Otherwise, it was a fun time for a little one..The last time I was there was somewhere in the mid 1990’s on a whim traveling around I decided to peek in – it was so different then..
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It’s funny, my dad took us there in the mid 90s, and they pulled the Stagecoach attack that Garondah and cw describe. My mom doesn’t like stuff like that but they singled her out and tried to take her purse. In retrospect, it would have been really easy to capture the actors, tie them up, dress up in the actor’s clothes, and rob people, but I digress.
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There is a good Arcadia book of “Kiddie Parks of the Adirondacks,” which unfortunately does NOT cover Frontier Town, but it does have pictures of Story Town, Enchanted Forest, Land of Make Believe, Magic Forest and Santa’s Workshop. As a kid in the ’60s we visited all the parks in the Eastern Adirondacks, including Frontier Town. They were magical to a little kid, a relatively short drive (although the Northway wasn’t entirely built yet) and not terribly expensive for the family.
Some pieces of Story Town still exist inside the Great Escape, and the little buildings outside the old wild west section there are actually from Art Monaco’s Land of Make Believe, which was in Jay.
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My parents both worked at Frontier Town back in 54-57..My Grandparents also worked there–My Grandfather was Davey Crockett..My dad was one of the ‘Bad Guys’ who help rob the train..He also drove one of the stage coaches and was in the Rodeo performances.
My God parents also performed there, and went on to Wild West in NJ.
We still have a number of pics from back then.
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