Editor’s Note: Throughout the summer we will be visiting some favorite NJ outdoor attractions. For this special post, Amy visited Wild West City and shares her trip with us. If you have a special outdoor attraction you would like us to feature, comment on our Facebook Page!
Wild West City, Netcong
50 Lackawanna Drive · Stanhope, NJ 07874
973-347-8900
Wild West City is open from 10:30 to 6pm every day from June 18th to Labor Day and on weekends only from April 30th to June 17th and Labor Day to Columbus Day.
It’s really easy to find off of Route 80 and about 1 hour west of New York City in Sussex County, NJ.
You can easily spend a day here, there’s lots to see and do.
The main attraction is the center street which is a wide dirt road with a wooden sidewalk on either side. The street is lined with buildings like the ones you’d find in a frontier town in early America.
There’s Doc Holiday’s office, an old fashioned barber shop, a saloon, post office, bank, blacksmith and more. Many of the storefronts can be entered and include artifacts from the era nicely labeled. When we went my kids enjoyed learning about how leeches were used to cure ills and talking to the blacksmith.
Every 15 minutes or so there is a show or demonstration that takes place in the middle of the street. Be forewarned, you have to be completely comfortable with gun play at this venue. The actors all carry “weapons†and the majority of the shows that take place feature shoot outs of sorts. Furthermore, the gift shop offers all sorts of cap guns and other pretend play items and many of the kids will be adorning recent purchases and play acting along with the staff.
When I asked my children (ages 8, 7 and 5) what their favorite act was they said they really liked the one that featured the trick rope. A real life cowboy used his trick rope to cut down a full size newspaper sheet into something the size of a postage stamp and he jumped through a lasso too.
Some of the shows call for child and adult participation and one of the main features is a scene where bandits are captured and tried and all the children who want to participate are deputized and involved in the capture and trial of the bandits. Needless to say, many of the children are armed with recent gift store purchases for this act.
In addition to the action on main street you can take a train and/or stage coach ride, play a round on a very rustic miniature golf course, visit the small petting zoo or try your luck and “pan for gold.â€
