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History
With a new competitor drawing crowds away, it was no surprise that in 1978, Frontier Village lost money and Rio Grande made their first attempt at trying to sell the park when they were hit with opposition from the bordering neighborhood to expand. There were virtually no interested buyers at any price. In early 1980 Rio Grande had hoped to make a small profit by including Hanna Barbara characters, but coupled with rising land prices in the Santa Clara County it was difficult to imagine Frontier Village remaining as an amusement park in such a prime housing development environment. Rio Grande again put it back on the market in August of the same year. They had originally planned to find a buyer that would keep the amusement park operating, but the only interested parties were that of real estate developers and investors, which only confirmed their assumption. Frontier Village had its final showdown September 16, 1980 under the ownership of Rio Grande Industries (Denver, CO). There was a public auction and everything was sold. There are no physical remains of the park today. You can view the present Edenvale Garden Park here.
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DO NOT COPY PHOTOS and POSTCARDS |
| Defunct Amusement Parks wishes to thank everyone listed above for sharing their information |
Thanks to Stacy for allowing Defunct Amusement Parks to use this material.
© 1998 Joel W Styer. All rights
reserved. Updated Thursday, March 22, 2001
Frontier Village was built on 49 acres in South
San Jose in or around 1961 before anyone ever heard of the words, Silicon Valley and the
demand for prime property and location were all the rage. I do not know who the original
owners were, but it was purchased in 1973 for $4 million by Rio Grande Industries Inc.
(who incidentally, also owned Arrow Development Company in Mt. View, Ca, a manufacturer of
roller coaster equipment). Rio purchased the park with the hopes of becoming involved with
the amusement park industry, operating a profitable business that would be able to sustain
a recession, and the potential to expand as the need arose. Perhaps what made Frontier
Village so unique is that is was western themed and being the only amusement park in the
immediate area, there was no competition. Admission was reasonable with the option of
purchasing an all day pass, or 
individual coupon books. It was also family oriented so
parents could feel safe dropping their kids off for the day. Not to mention, where else
could you be transported back in time to the wild west and see a staged gunfight and ride
a stagecoach! To this day, I still remember what it was like riding on the stagecoach,
whether you got to sit on top next to the driver, or inside the coach itself. As a little
kid, it was a real thrill.
In
1976, Rio Grande met with competition in the form of a new amusement park called
Marriott’s Great America being built in nearby Santa Clara. It was a much grander
scale park that boasted exciting rides and a corkscrew, upside down loops roller coaster.
Frontier Village made an attempt at trying to compete with Marriott’s by adding its
own coaster, the Apache Whirlwind, but it had no drops, and only sharp turns and
loop-arounds. Rio probably would have preferred to build a more larger "adult"
coaster, but due to the fact that the park didn’t have the extra land available and
that the other rides were mostly docile, they had to work with what they did have.
Rides
and attractions