Book Description

The Wild West theme park is a piece of Americana that experienced great popularity in the mid-twentieth century. Their legacies survive through photographs, maps, and first-hand accounts posted online, but only a fraction were documented. As they merge two important parts of history. Wild West theme parks deserve an elemental examination, as well as contemplation on their preservation. This thesis examines Wild West theme parks by delving into their two basic elements, the American West obsession and the history of theme parks, and by studying three cases: Frontier Town, Frontier Village, and Ghost Town. The Western obsession began with the American settlement when letters were published and, soon after, writers and and artists rode the terrain documenting the West. Movies perpetuated the myth of the West, and television continued the tradition. The Western obsession climaxed in the 1950s and '60s with constant exposure to the genre, but declined with space travel and video games in the 1970s and '80s. Theme parks are rooted in fairs, pleasure gardens, and world's fairs. Theme parks started in America when settlers established picnic grounds, which became immensely popular when they are created at the end of trolley lines. The amusement park as we know it today was established with Coney Island and popularized by Disney, who created a cleaner and safer park. The industry changed when conglomerates began purchasing parks. With the height of the Western obsession and a renewed popularity of theme parks in the 1950s and '60s, the creation of Wild West theme parks was a natural convergence of the two elements. The parks suffered in the 1970s when the West was no longer a fascination and the amusement park industry changed. Examination of three parks finds the demise of Wild West theme parks was due to changes in those two elements, as well as circumstances that caused regular theme parks to fail, such as urban decay, increased land values, and limitations on upgrades. However, two questions linger: could Wild West theme parks have survived and how? and should the remaining parks be preserved, and if yes, how?