Souvineer Shop

The souvenir hall at Western Village sits inside what was once a working frontier town set in the mountains of Nikko City, Tochigi Prefecture. American flags hang from the ceiling, limp above carved timber counters. Green plastic sleds are dumped against the right wall. Paper lies scattered across bare concrete. The hall is quiet now in a way it was not designed to be. Western Village opened in October 1973 as Kinugawa Family Ranch (鬼怒川ファミリー牧場), established by Ōminami Ken'ichi and Ōminami Shizuko on family-owned land in Kurihara with initial capital of ¥3 million. In March 1982, the facility was formally renamed Western Village and repositioned as a Western American-themed amusement park. Over the following two decades the park expanded significantly: a 914 mm gauge steam railroad began operating in May 1988, and in 1995 a new zone called American Dream Land opened, anchored by a one-third scale Mount Rushmore replica built at a cost of ¥2.5 billion. The park was operated by Ōtaka Enterprises Co., Ltd. and occupied a narrow riverside site along National Route 121 at the entrance to Kinugawa Onsen. The site's Western Land featured a full-scale frontier town set with timber-framed buildings and painted false fronts replicating 1880s American main-street architecture: a saloon, bank, barbershop, blacksmith, sheriff's office, hotel facade, and chapel. The souvenir hall was one of these spaces. By the mid-2000s the broader Kinugawa district was in economic decline. Nissin Debt Collection, having acquired the park's bank debt, applied to the Tokyo District Court for foreclosure in September 2006. Western Village closed to the public on 7 December 2006. All employees were terminated by February 2007. It has not reopened. This photograph was made in 2014, eight years into the closure. The flags, the counters, and the sleds remain where they were left.