Frontier Town Abandoned Theme Park Then and Now is a coffee table style book that documents the conception, life, and closing of the beloved Adirondack Mountain's historically based theme park called "Frontier Town." With America being romanced by Western movies on the big screen and television, the country was ready for a western themed amusement park. Arthur Bensen, Edward Ovensen and Magnus Anderson, three Long Island Norwegian-American friends came together to open America's first western themed amusement park located in North Hudson, NY yet it was set to the traditions of the 1800's old west while offering local trade crafts and wares. The first year it drew over 40,000 visitors with little advertising. Over the next 45 years the park continued to host millions of visitors, and averaged over 300 employees and volunteers per season. The park included a collection of genuine log buildings which formed a traditional frontier town, a professional rodeo arena, a historical industrial section that included a grist mill, saw mill, forge, and ice house. It also included a traditional Native American village, animals, stage coach rides, and a fort with a full cavalry. This book documents the history of Frontier Town through professional photography as well as visitor's snapshots that are combined with historical storytelling that give the reader a feel of what Frontier Town was all about! Tammy Whitty-Brown's gift of gab and historical connections combined with her storytelling abilities and Jennifer Renee ST.Pierre's equestrian background and photography are showcased with their love of Adirondack history

The keen-eyed, cool-headed, and fearless men (Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Buffalo Bill Cody, Big Foot Wallace, and Captain Jim Cook, among others) who were pivotal personalities for more than half a century in the almost ceaseless task of clearing the way for and guarding the lives and properties of explorers, emigrants, and settlers in the West, are an extinct type of pioneer, Accounts of the heroic deeds of this handful of men, however, remain today as indelible records that dramatize the melting away of this country’s vast frontiers.

With evocative stories and eye-opening photographs, Legacy of the Frontier: Day Trips to Historic Sites that Shaped the West unlocks the distinctive history of four must-visit destinations in the Rocky Mountain West. Not just a mere travel guide, this fully illustrated book sheds light on places where courageous men and women forged paths through this untamed and vast segment of the continent-and left their permanent mark on the landscape in the process.In historically inspired narratives, background sketches, essays and images, author Deborah Erickson brings the past of this historic region back to life. You'll visit:* Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site, where a frontier trading post evolved into a central player in the nation's economic activity and security;* Georgetown, Colorado, where the silver rush built a raucous, anything-goes mining town whose remnants are still functioning today;* Scotts Bluff National Monument, perhaps the most iconic landmark on the Oregon Trail; and* Fort Laramie National Historic Site, where encounters between soldiers, settlers, and Indians took place as America grew.In addition, Legacy of the Frontier includes detailed maps, driving directions, multiple side-trips and recommendations for further reading. Join traders, mountain men, miners, overland pioneers, soldiers and Indians and together walk the road of Western history.

In The First American Frontier, Wilma Dunaway challenges many assumptions about the development of preindustrial Southern Appalachia's society and economy. Drawing on data from 215 counties in nine states from 1700 to 1860, she argues that capitalist exchange and production came to the region much earlier than has been previously thought. Her innovative book is the first regional history of antebellum Southern Appalachia and the first study to apply world-systems theory to the development of the American frontier. Dunaway demonstrates that Europeans established significant trade relations with Native Americans in the southern mountains and thereby incorporated the region into the world economy as early as the seventeenth century. In addition to the much-studied fur trade, she explores various other forces of change, including government policy, absentee speculation in the region's natural resources, the emergence of towns, and the influence of local elites. Contrary to the myth of a homogeneous society composed mainly of subsistence homesteaders, Dunaway finds that many Appalachian landowners generated market surpluses by exploiting a large landless labor force, including slaves. In delineating these complexities of economy and labor in the region, Dunaway provides a perceptive critique of Appalachian exceptionalism and development.

The Old West epitomises American freedom and ingenuity. This guide covers the authentic Old West in all its legendary grit and complexity. With the well-chosen sights, festivals, activities, hotels, and restaurants, travellers can re-live western America's first days.