Frontier town Schroon lake New York

STARTED IN 1952, FRONTIER TOWN was a theme park built for kids, and for their folks who use to be kids. For more than four decades, with trick riders, bucking broncos, horses and buggies and stagecoach bandits, this rural entertainment destination in New York’s Adirondack Mountains scratched their cowboy itch. Founded by Arthur Benson, an enterprising phone technician from Staten Island, the park had a Pioneer Village (with lots of calico dresses and butter churning), Prairie Junction (modeled after a Wild West main street), an Indian Village, a rodeo arena, and even a narrow gauge railroad. It drew steady crowds to the decidedly un-Western part of the world that is the Adirondack Mountains, until a combination of factors led to financial troubles in the mid-1980s, including a waning interest in Westerns and easier access to bigger and grander theme parks in sunnier climates.