Frontier Village was a western-themed amusement park which opened on October 21,1961 and closed on September 28, 1980. It was located on approximately 30 acres of what had previously been part of the Hayes estate (an estate owned by a prominent political and newspaper publishing family in the Santa Clara Valley) on Monterey Highway in San Jose, California. It was started by Joseph Zukin Jr., a Palo Alto entrepreneur and small businessman, after he and his family visited Disneyland in 1959. Zukin was inspired by Disneyland's family-friendly atmosphere, its thematic divisions, and the fact that nothing like the park existed in Northern California. The look and design of Frontier Village is owed to Laurie (Laurence) Hollings, an experienced Hollywood set designer and amusement ride designer. Some of Hollings' previous work included nature habitats at the California Academy of Sciences, sets and designs for San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House, and several Western movies filmed at Columbia and Paramount Studios. As Hollings imagined it, the park would be a "sort of tongue-in-cheek approach to the Wild West". To this end, Frontier Village utilized stock characters to create the illusion of a wild western frontier town replete with a Deputy Marshall who was the "key character" and also the PR face of the park. The marshall's job was to entertain and tend to guests. Additionally, in the mock gun fights which were staged every hour on Frontier Village's Main Street, the marshall was "the hero" who saved the town from dangerous outlaws. In terms of the layout, Frontier Village consisted of a central square with a railroad encircling the entire park over bridges and canyons, a village with shops, numerous rides and an outdoor stage for live performances. Among the attractions at the park was a small animal preserve, Rainbow Falls (a fishing pond where guests could catch and bring home trout to eat), an old school hourse, a stagecoach run, burro pack rides, an antique train, an archery range, a jail, a general store, a Hollywood-style stunt show, a shooting gallery, and western-themed rides like the Lost Dutchmine Mine, the Flying Scooter, and the Apache Whirlwind. In 1973, without the funds to expand, the park was sold to Rio Grande Industries. Rio Grande Industries planned to expand the park onto 60 more acres of the Hayes estate. However these plans were disrupted when families in the area protested. "The legal hassles with the nearby homeowners, the skyrocketing San Jose land values, plus increasing competitions from ... Marriot's Great America in nearby Santa Clara, California" all contributed to Frontier Village's eventual closure. "The land that the park occupied was eventually made into a city park called Edenvale Garden Park, where some remains of Frontier Village still exist". Former employees and fants of Frontier Village have created a website devoted to Frontier Village. In addition to this, beginning in 2001 annual picnics began to be held each summer at Edenvale Garden Park to commemorate Frontier Village.
From the description of Frontier Village collection 1961-1980. (San Jose Public Library). WorldCat record id: 430103852
