This website is dedicated to Arthur L. Bensen's vision of a theme park where visitors could see American history come to life before their eyes -

Frontier Town, North Hudson, NY

This is the inside of the Frontier Town brochure which I used to pour over incessantly. Click on the picture for a full-size rendition (~500K JPG)
Frontier Town is closed - in fact, the last time that Frontier Town was open was during the summer of 1998. Since it closed for the season that year it has not re-opened. And, barring a miracle, it will probably never open again. (See the History of Frontier Town link below for more information.) This website celebrates what was, through the memories of those who visited, and worked, there.
Update Addendum for 7 February 2010
A visitor to this website maintains his own website named Project Absurd, and he has created two pages filled with pictures and videos that he took exploring the Frontier Town site (physical site, not website ) during the summer and fall of 2009. I have added links to those two pages on the Pictures of Frontier Town since it closed page.
Update for 31 January 2010
On the last day of January I figure the time has come that I really must remove my Season's Greeting message for another year. While doing that I have added some new pictures to the site that I received during the fall:

You'll find links to two new pages of pictures on the Pictures from when Frontier Town was open page

And a link to a new picture on the Pictures of Frontier Town since it closed page

I also added some interesting facts about the history of Frontier Town that were sent to me by a visitor to this website to the History of Frontier Town page.

I do occasionally add more to this site (though I am slower than I used to be), so be sure to check back occasionally - you can determine what has changed since your last visit by looking at the Past Updates page.

And for everyone who has, or who will, email me, please have patience if I am slow to reply. I do, eventually, answer every email I receive.

End of Update
My name is Steve Gross. I grew up in northern Vermont during the sixties. Art Bensen opened Frontier Town on July 4, 1952. My first visit came ten years later, prompted by the Magic Tom television show on CFCF-TV out of Montreal. For the next ten years, my family and I would make a trip to Frontier Town each summer.
Though anyone could buy a paper announcing that they had captured an outlaw, I was lucky enough on a couple of my visits to be in the right place at the right time and be chosen to actually catch a stagecoach robber. This is a picture of me at the trial of that robber from our 1967 visit.
Each year I would get to take one friend with me to Frontier Town. Through the years I took a number of different friends but one in particular came for a number of years. He and I created a 'Frontier Town Club'. I wrote to Art Bensen to tell him about the club. I still have the letter Mr. Bensen sent me in reply.
I think that 1971 was the last year my family went to Frontier Town. After graduating from high school in 1974, I took one solo trip to Frontier Town. I did not go back again until 1990, when I took my wife to see this place that had meant so much to me as a kid.
Kids today do not have the exposure to westerns that we did in the sixties. Think of all the television shows that portrayed the west - 'Gunsmoke', 'Bonanza', 'Rawhide', 'Death Valley Days', 'The Big Valley', etc. And local television played a lot more western movies - John Wayne, Roy Rogers - than syndicated programming in those days.
I took my kids to Frontier Town in 1996 and 1997, though I don't think it meant as much to them as it did to me thirty years earlier. Here is a picture of my kids and me in front of the blockhouse from our 1996 trip.

Frontier Town as it existed for 52 years is gone. The contents of the park were auctioned on 9 & 10 October 2004 and the land that the park sits on was auctioned in two parcels on 21 October 2004. One parcel contains the A-Frame, and the purchaser has stated that he plans to resell it at some point. The other parcel contains the park itself, and the purchaser has not made his intentions for the land known. (I got this information from an article that appeared in the Plattsburgh Press Republican on 26 October 2004.) Panther Mountain Water Park retained two undeveloped parcels. The New York Times contained an article on 18 October 2004 that said the following:

Mr. Delafrange [Ken Delafrange, president of PMWP] will retain a sliver of the property, which includes a gas station and a hotel, and he hopes to do something with it." I'm 59 years old and to play cowboys and Indians for a living isn't the worst thing in the world."

Over the summer of 2007, Panther Mountain Water Park lost its appeal of the tax sale by Essex County, allowing the winners of the auction to take possesion of the land. It remains to be seen what they will do now that they have title to it.

I would be glad to hear from anyone who has news of Frontier Town, or who has memories they would like to share. You can contact me at FrontierTownFan@hotmail.com.

I bought the sign pictured to the left at the Frontier Town contents liquidation auction at Gokey's Trading Post in North Hudson on 9 October 2004. It appears as if it might have originally been at the bottom of a larger sign, as the top of this sign is rough cut and not beveled like its other sides. Now, however, it graces the door that leads from my dining room to my living room - I only wish that Frontier Town really were on the other side of the door.
Past Updates updated Where to see some of Frontier Town today
Park Map Daily Park Schedule Movies of Frontier Town
Memories Guest Book Forum
Picture Galleries updated History of Frontier Town updated The Passing of an Era
Airpark The People of Frontier Town
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This site is not associated with Frontier Town but is the personal endeavor of Steve Gross.