About San Jose's Edenvale

My last posting on Frontier Village, San Jose's beloved little old west theme park, we concluded our tour of the park.

You may be asking yourself what ever became of this little park and why haven't I heard about it before. Well, Frontier Village closed in 1980 and was torn down shortly afterward.

Why did Frontier Village close? Many factors went into the closure of Frontier Village.

First off, increased competition from a new large theme park in Santa Clara "Marriott's Great America". Great America being at least four times the size of Frontier Village, could offer something that Frontier Village could not, size.

Great America was much closer and much more modern. Great America made it's debut in 1976 and was backed by a huge hotel conglomerate with deep pockets.

The Marriott corporation was going to build three identical Great America parks in different regions of the country. Santa Clara got the West Coast Great America, Gurnee Illinois got the Midwest Great America. The Washington D.C. area was to get the third Great America park.

Frontier Village by this time had been sold to Rio Grande Industries, a railroad company. Rio Grande Industries also owned local roller coaster manufacturer Arrow Development Corporation. It looked like Frontier Village could soon be the debut location for all sorts of ride & roller coaster innovations.

Frontier Village had room to expand into the Badlands as well as some additional land adjacent to the park proper.

Behind Frontier Village was the Hayes mansion, which could be seen from the stagecoach ride. It always looked like an old haunted house. It was just a historic property in a state of disrepair. Frontier Village was actually built on the gardens of the Hayes estate, known as Edenvale. The large Eucalyptus trees that graced frontier village were part of that much older estate gardens.

http://www.dolce-hayes-mansion-hotel.com/

San Jose was also experiencing explosive growth due to the emergence of Silicon Valley. Whereas frontier village was all alone in the orchards in the southern part of town. By 1980 frontier village was in the middle of a neighborhood of single family homes.

Frontier Village wanted to expand however, between Great America, the historic Hayes property and the approaching neighborhoods, the city declined frontier village's application to expand.

It was the end of the trail for Frontier Village! The park was auctioned off piece by piece until there was nothing left.

In my next posting we will examine the legacy of Frontier Village.

Part 1 http://activerain.com/blogsview/717285/Frontier-Village-Part-1

Part 2 http://activerain.com/blogsview/718430/Frontier-Village-Part-2

Part 3 http://activerain.com/blogsview/718484/Frontier-Village-Part-3

Part 4 http://activerain.com/blogsview/721314/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 5 http://activerain.com/blogsview/721431/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 6 http://activerain.com/blogsview/723682/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 7 http://activerain.com/blogsview/732184/Frontier-Village-Part-7

Part 8

Okay now that we have explored the Badlands on Stagecoach and Train excursions, now is the time to explore some other transportation methods that could be found in Frontier Village.

Old 99 was a small train ride where the little kids could become the engineers of their own steam engine train. There were no cars following the engines, just the little cartoon looking steam engines. They would go around at a very slow speed around a small circuit of track. If I remember there was a small bell that you could pull the rope and make it go clang, clang, clang as you went around engineering your train around.

Near Old 99 was the Antique Autos ride. These small cars would travel around on a small circuit concrete roadway. These were electric powered by bus bar and were fun to drive. They had steering wheels that did absolutely nothing. The course it took was very twisty and as the park aged it was lushly landscaped.

The Spirit of Kitty Hawk was one of the later rides added to the park. It was little airplane themed vehicles. They had a large rudder type of wing in front of the vehicle and you could grab the handle in the wing and let the wind direct your ride journey. Each of these airplane themed vehicles was attached to spokes radiating from a central spinning hub by way of chains in front of and behind each vehicle up to the spokes above. This was one of my favorite rides because it generated quite a cool breeze on a summer day.

The Round-up was a carnival ride where you stand up in half round pods. A chain across the pod would be the only thing to hold you in. These pods were placed around the perimeter of a large flat disk. As the ride began to spin you would be stuck against the wall of your pod. The disk would then start to go up on an angle and soon you would be doing some gravity defying rotations. The outside of this ride had large longhorn cattle horns on it and it was totally Frontier Village.

The Antique Autos weren't the automobile ride in the park there was also Duster's Turnpike. This ride also one of the last rides to be added to the park was located right near the entrance log stockade fort and on the fort side of the creek. Duster's Turnpike was a higher tech larger gasoline powered car ride. The vehicles were kept onto the track by way of a metal bar that ran down the center but the steering wheels actually turned the wheels. This is much like the car rides you see in other parks that survive today. Duster's Turnpike also had a much larger layout than the Antique Autos ride. Dusters Turnpike had overpasses and underpasses and just wasn't a flat layout. I really liked this ride.

Part 1 http://activerain.com/blogsview/717285/Frontier-Village-Part-1

Part 2 http://activerain.com/blogsview/718430/Frontier-Village-Part-2

Part 3 http://activerain.com/blogsview/718484/Frontier-Village-Part-3

Part 4 http://activerain.com/blogsview/721314/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 5 http://activerain.com/blogsview/721431/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 6 http://activerain.com/blogsview/723682/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 7 http://activerain.com/blogsview/732184/Frontier-Village-Part-7

Part 8

In my last blog on the defunct amusement park, we had just taken the Apache Whirlwind and Canoes for a ride.

In this episode of my blog we will explore the wilderness of Frontier Village. There were many ways of getting out there. The best was by the train. You could catch the train at where else, the train station at the front of the park. The train would travel out of the town area and head toward the real train tracks along Monterey Highway. Once beyond the main part of the park and clearing the lake it would make the turn back into what was called on the maps as "The Badlands". It was landscaped enough where you couldn't see much of the park beyond the lake. It felt like you had actually gone into the wilderness of the frontier.

There was a creaky old tunnel that the train would go through. In reality it was the garage for the train at nights and off season. But the story us tourists were told that there was some TNT lost in that tunnel from when they were digging. We had to go very slow so we didn't blow off the TNT by accident.

After the tunnel, would be the dangerous area where train robbers were known to have been active recently. Sure enough, I was always unlucky because my train was always robbed somehow. How's that for odds, I guess that makes my modern adult life somewhat safer since we got "robbed" so many times when we were kids.

Another way to get back in to the badlands was to take the stage coach. I cannot tell you how much fun the bumpy dusty stage coach ride was for a little kid. We sometimes got to sit on the seating on the roof of the stage. Funny how things happened, stage coach bandits would be out in the badlands to rob the stage too.

The Frontier Village Sheriff and his deputies were very busy people. No wonder there were so many gun fights on Main Street.

One last way to get back to the badlands was to go on the slow burro pack train. It was fun for a small kid who only traveled by 1965 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon.

I can't believe how much fun this series of blogs has been. The words just keep jumping off my keyboard as memories come back. I promise this tour into local history (hence my username here at activerain Historytours) will have a real estate tie in later.

Part 1 http://activerain.com/blogsview/717285/Frontier-Village-Part-1

Part 2 http://activerain.com/blogsview/718430/Frontier-Village-Part-2

Part 3 http://activerain.com/blogsview/718484/Frontier-Village-Part-3

Part 4 http://activerain.com/blogsview/721314/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 5 http://activerain.com/blogsview/721431/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 6 http://activerain.com/blogsview/723682/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 7 http://activerain.com/blogsview/732184/Frontier-Village-Part-7

In my last blog on the defunct amusement park, we had just reached the Sidewinder and the Stampede rides.

Beyond that was the one ride that was the farthest back on the walking paths. It was the Apache Whirlwind Rollercoaster. The Apache Whirlwind was added in the last years of Frontier Village's existence. It wasn't very tall by rollercoaster standards; in fact it rather hugged the landscape. For what it lacked in height it made up in speed and twisty turns.

It was powered by way of an electric bus bar and was going from the instant it left the station. It would make about three cycles of the circuit and get faster and faster as it traveled around.

There was a small outdoor amphitheater near the Apache Whirlwind. The seats were situated around a small cove on the shoreline of the lake. The actual stage was across a small body of water. Frontier Village would have some stunt shows there for the park guests to see.

Coming back toward the village proper was a swinging rope bridge across the water. This bridge would take you on a wobbly journey over to Indian Island.

On the lake there was a canoe ride where the tourists would board these long canoes that would seat about 20 guests. A park ride employee would be at each end of the canoe to help the tourists navigate the waters of the lake. I am sure the lake wasn't deep at all and would never pose any hazard to anyone if a canoe ever overturned.

Once back in town near the gold panning area, you'd come across the town's other road. I think that it was called California Street. There was this neat photo opportunity set up there were you could go behind a small street scenes and open up windows of the buildings. Some of these windows were openings of the heads of cartoon images of some townsfolk. These little windows would allow you to insert your face on the sheriff, on a wanted poster or the saloon girl's body.

Well, I am going to leave some more for my next posting. I wish you all could have enjoyed Frontier Village like I did when I was a youngster.

Part 1 http://activerain.com/blogsview/717285/Frontier-Village-Part-1

Part 2 http://activerain.com/blogsview/718430/Frontier-Village-Part-2

Part 3 http://activerain.com/blogsview/718484/Frontier-Village-Part-3

Part 4 http://activerain.com/blogsview/721314/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 5 http://activerain.com/blogsview/721431/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 6 http://activerain.com/blogsview/723682/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 7 http://activerain.com/blogsview/732184/Frontier-Village-Part-7

We have spent the last two blog postings exploring the Town Square and Main Street areas of Frontier Village.

Now at the end of main street opened up a vista of the lake off to your left side. On your right you still had some exciting things ahead.

I remember in this area there was an area where you could go panning for GOLD. It was always fun to do because your hand would get wet and on a hot summer day that was always fun to play in the water.

To the right was where the fishing pond was located. It where you could drop in a fishing line and catch a rainbow trout for you dinner. I never liked doing that because I as a small kid would only like to catch tuna fish sandwiches or school lunch room fish sticks.

The waterfall that trickled down into the fishing pond was built on the side of the rock covered building that was the Lost Dutchman's Mine. Now that was a real fun ride, you'd board these ore carts and enter the dark mine interior. Once inside and your eyes adjusted to the darkness you'd begin to see miners working to get the gold out of the mountain. Had they known just how easy it was just across the way over by the lake. All the kids were striking gold over at the gold panning area. Well at the end of the ride there was always that crazy prospector with the case of TNT firing off his pistols. Watch out for that spark.....KABLEWIEEEE BOOM BAM! The ore carts would exit over by the trout pond and it was back to Frontier Village.

Next to that was the El Sito Myterio. This building had the slanted floors and walls. Water appeared to run up hill, brooms would stand by themselves, Bowling balls would roll up hill, and your little brother grew taller than you just by walking across the room. It was always fun to stand at a good lean without falling over.

Then came one of my favorite rides. It was the Sidewinder, a classic carnival Tilt-A-Whirl ride. There was just something about the one at Frontier Village that it ran faster and more intense that at other places.

In doing this article I found an old park map. It reminded me that I was wrong about the Stampede's location. It was down a path past the Sidewinder. I kinda recall it being originally at the location of the Tarantula, and then moved to it's newer location near sidewinder. Maybe someone can refresh my memory.

Stay tuned for further adventures from my memory

Part 1 http://activerain.com/blogsview/717285/Frontier-Village-Part-1

Part 2 http://activerain.com/blogsview/718430/Frontier-Village-Part-2

Part 3 http://activerain.com/blogsview/718484/Frontier-Village-Part-3

Part 4 http://activerain.com/blogsview/721314/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 5 http://activerain.com/blogsview/721431/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 6 http://activerain.com/blogsview/723682/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part

Part 7 http://activerain.com/blogsview/732184/Frontier-Village-Part-7