A Goodbye to Frontier Town
On the morning of 9 October 2004 I arrived early for the auction of the contents of Frontier Town. I walked up the railroad tracks and into the empty park. Here are a few of the pictures I took as I said my goodbyes to this place that meant so much to me as a kid.
Looking down main street of Prairie Junction as the early morning sun burns the dew off the roof over the boardwalk. Meanwhile, the sign that would normally grace the false front of the Last Chance Saloon sits at Gokey's Trading Post, waiting to be auctioned later in the day.
Where once bulls and broncs tried to throw the weight from their backs (which happened to be a cowboy), a tree's leaves now turn red. The massive doors of Fort Custer are thrown wide, waiting for the cavalry to ride through them to the rescue.
The stocks wait for a deputy chosen from the visitors to bring in a stage robber to be tried and, if found guilty, ducked in the ducking stool. (I don't think that the person brought in was ever not found guilty.) Looking up the path that, for the first few decades of Frontier Town's existence, led visitors into the park. As a kid, there was nothing quite like the thrill of walking down the switchback on the hill in the back of this picture and seeing the park for the first time, the train's shrill steam whistle blowing in the distance, beckoning me into a world of myths come to life...