Statesman Journal from Salem, Oregon • Page 31

Home Garden Travel TV Features SALEM foundio 1651 OREGON Statesman, Salem, Nov. 1, 1964 (Sec. IV) 31 Frontier Village Draws Travel Editor jit ih vJ Pi i I 1 I I I I A. iMarf-tli -St Tv if MfEigHflftift piths gggttieMiiMata. JI Frontier Village in San Jose.

There's a real train which leaves the depot at regular intervals to take passengers along the one-mile track. Onf nf Hkfnrv (SAN J0SE' This South" VUl Ul niblUiy ern Pacific depot out of the books of history is one of the interesting starting places at Flavor of Old West in Family Playgrounds By LILLIE L. MADSEN Travel Editor, The Statesman SAN JOSE, Calif. There's a comparatively new place to picnic in west-central California. And because it is scare-ly three years old and all of the multitudes have not found It yet, it's a nice place to take the family.

We discovered the place while wheeling along leisurely on Monterey Road just south of San Jose. In fact, the residents of San Jose say it isn't" "out of" but in the southern end of the city. All of a sudden there is was a high frontier fence looking as if Indians were being baracaded. There were interesting tops of buildings to be seen over the fence. Maybe a lot of others knew about it a lot must have, as more than one million visited here during its first three years but Frontier Village until a couple of weeks ago was unknown to us.

Naturally we had to investigate. Family Amusement Park Actually, it is a family amusement park which opened its huge, wooden stockade gates for the first time to the public on Nov. 4, 1961. The $2 million western wonderland has developed on 33 acres of naturally-wooded property. At first, one thinks of Disneyland.

But this Is not the likeness. Having seen Disneyland, you will still want to see this or vice versa. They are entirely different. We walked through the stockades on to Main Street and felt like we were youngsters in one Of Willamette Valley's towns during our grandparents' day. Mln Street is a western town light out of a paper-backed western." We found shops, stores and public buildings all architecturally designed to scale.

Bank 'Out of History As we looked farther into the town, we noted that some Gay-nineties were mixed with Frontier life. There was the Silver Collar Saloon, a replica of a frontier town saloon, complete with a piano player, singer and Old-time entertainment. Even the tunes belonged to days we couldn't remember. Dapper Dan's Ice Cream Parlor looked a Dttle more familiar, as did Canita Murieta Cafe. The Last National Bank was something OOt of history, and the Star Gazette village newspaper resembled a movie version of a small town paper.

It had one specially fine feature, however: Youngsters were being shown how printing was done on an antique press. The Frontier Village marshal's office belonged to a comic section, as did its jail cells and arsenal. There were those, however, JkJ kaF' J. F- -j -crrrijSZ On the Warpath in the Indian war canoe in the man-made lakes and riv ers of Frontier Village. This is part of the fun in west-central California's new family amusement park.

(Standing up in a canoe is not recommended.) a 1920-vintage carousel with handsomely carved wood horses. There are even some Indian war canoes which youngsters can help paddle on man-made lakes and rivers. To us, it seemed the main attractions were actually for youngsters under teenage, but the park is built for family and a tree-shaded picnic grove encourages families to bring their own lunches. During the summer the park is open daily. From now until spring (it still seems like summer here) it is open weekends, and on all legal and school holidays.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. No one should go here expecting to find another Disneyland. It isn't that kind of place but it is a lot of fun. El Sito Mysterio, the house of weird illusions of nature.

And all of a sudden we were startled on peaceful Main Street by gun fire. Every hour on the hour, we were informed, the peace is punctuated by gun shots, as the town marshal and an outlaw stage a mock battle, ending as always with outlaw laid low and family carried out by the village undertaker. Real Tepee Village We wandered on over a wooden suspension bridge whereby we reached Indian Island, where buck-skin attired Indian Jim and his Trading post hold forth in an outpost fort and teepee village. Drums and tom-toms began beating and Indian dancers appeared. This, too.

is carried on at comparatively regular in-. tervals, we were informed. We boarded a small train in the elaborate oldtime village railroad depot in Central Square. Here the Southern Pacific blew its whistles and puffed its way around the park on a mile-long track. The youngsters find the trip through the "wild country and over rivers" a real thrill particularly when an outlaw comes out of ambush to rob the train.

Some of the smallest fry, however, didn't quite approve of this performance. There is also a burro ride and a stagecoach drawn by four horses. Indian War Canoes There are other rides like the horseless carriage a Maxwell built three fifths to size and driven electrically and who told us they were "true pictures" of the past. Almost solemnly, we were led to one of the newer additions on Main Street: The School House Museum. Typically 19th Century This is a typical little red school house of the 19th Century, which includes wax figures of 11 children and a school marm.

Even the potbellied stove, slates and school books are in place. As it was warm the day we visited "Frontier Village, there was no fire in the stove. We looked for a time at Dr. Peters' Pictures of the Past, a collection of 2,000 rare old photographs showing all phases of living from 1840 to 1940. For another spell we tried to discover some of the mysteries of.