Downtown

The main street of Western Village in Nikko was not a set built for a film. It was a functioning amusement park attraction, constructed with timber-framed buildings carrying painted false fronts designed to replicate the look of an 1880s American frontier town. Saloon, bank, barbershop, blacksmith, sheriff's office, hotel facade, chapel. Each building faced onto a central street wide enough for costumed staff to perform live shows featuring whip-cracking and sharpshooting for paying visitors. The park began 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-owned land in Kurihara, on a narrow riverside site along National Route 121 at the entrance to Kinugawa Onsen. In March 1982, the facility was formally renamed Western Village (ウェスタン村) and repositioned as a theme park. Attractions expanded steadily through the 1980s and into the 1990s: a 914 mm gauge steam railway from May 1988, an Indian Theater in 1991, and in 1995 the American Dream Land zone, anchored by a one-third scale Mount Rushmore replica built at a total project cost of ¥2.5 billion. The park tracked the economic fortunes of the Kinugawa Onsen district closely. Combined overnight stays at Kinugawa and Kawaji hot springs peaked at approximately 3.41 million in 1993 and fell to 1.48 million by 2011. When Ashikaga Bank, the main lender to approximately 70 per cent of regional tourism operators, was nationalised on 29 November 2003, credit access across the district tightened sharply. Western Village reduced general admission from ¥2,400 to ¥1,500 in 2004. Nissin Debt Collection, having acquired the park's bank debt, applied to the Tokyo District Court for foreclosure in September 2006. The park closed to the public on 7 December 2006, citing equipment maintenance. All employees were terminated in February 2007. This photograph was made in 2014. The false-fronts remain standing. Dust covers the painted timber. Faded signs hang above doorways that no costumed performer will walk through again.