Bank

Western Village's frontier town was built to look like an 1880s American main street, and the bank was part of that streetscape. Timber-framed with a painted false front, it sat alongside the saloon, barbershop, sheriff's office, and hotel facade in the Western Land zone of the park. Inside, a teller's counter runs the width of the room. Ledgers rest on the surface, covered in the same dust that settles on everything here. Fading light comes in from one side and falls across the counter. Nothing appears to have been moved since the doors closed. Western Village opened in October 1973 as Kinugawa Family Ranch (鬼怒川ファミリー牧場), founded by Ōminami Ken'ichi and Ōminami Shizuko on family land in Kurihara, in what was then Imaichi City. The park was formally renamed Western Village and repositioned as a theme park in March 1982. It sat at the entrance to Kinugawa Onsen along National Route 121, its frontier town zone on the west bank of the Togawa River, the stretch of water the park called the Rio Grande. Through the 1980s and into the 1990s the park expanded: a 914 mm gauge steam railway, an Indian Theater in 1991, and in 1995 a one-third scale Mount Rushmore replica anchoring a new American Dream Land zone, the whole project costing ¥2.5 billion. Kinugawa Onsen's combined overnight stays peaked at approximately 3.41 million in 1993. By 2006 the regional economy had contracted sharply, lending had dried up following the nationalisation of Ashikaga Bank in 2003, and the park's debt had been acquired by Nissin Debt Collection, which filed for foreclosure at the Tokyo District Court in September 2006. Western Village closed to the public on 7 December 2006, and all staff were terminated in February 2007. This photograph was made in 2014. The ledgers were still on the counter. The frontier town was still standing.