Frontier Town in Cave Creek, and the art show on its street

Drive up Cave Creek Road and the town still looks like it decided to stay western. Frontier Town is the street in the middle of that, at 6245 E Cave Creek Rd. People come for the false fronts and the shops. I put the Cave Creek show right on that street, so you walk the art and the town at the same time.

The place opened in 1969. Herman King bought the old guest-ranch property because he wanted a western town, and his family has kept it going ever since. Cave Creek was already an old ranch and mining settlement by then. It didn't even incorporate until 1986. Frontier Town grew up inside a town that was in no hurry to become a suburb.

Some of the buildings were already here

A lot of the street is theme, and that's part of why people come. A few pieces are older than the attraction. There's a Leather Mill building from the late 1880s on the grounds, and a 1936 Works Progress Administration outhouse that still gets pointed out. Other structures came from the Bartlett Dam camps in the 1930s, when crews were housed out this way. The gallows and Boot Hill along the walk are part of the western street. Kids who saw them in the seventies bring their own kids now.

Saturday on that street

The shops change. The address doesn't. Frontier Town is still a place to walk, shop, and eat, and their calendar is at frontiertownaz.com. When I'm in town, the booths go up on that same street.

The next one is Art at Frontier Town. If you want a booth, that's where you apply. If you just want to come out, the dates and hours are there too. I list it under both Frontier Town and Cave Creek, and with the other Valley weekends on the Phoenix page.