Wild West City

Dodge City, Rebuilt in Byram Township

In the fall of 1956, a group of investors bought a tract of land off Lackawanna Drive and started framing up a western town, having first flown out to Dodge City, Kansas to study the real thing. Wild West City opened the following spring, in 1957. The Stabile family has run it since 1963, with the Stabile-Benson family at the helm since 2019. Nearly seventy years later it is still the only western theme park in New Jersey, sitting squarely in the Skylands region with a Stanhope mailing address but a physical home inside Byram Township.

A Full Day of Shows and Rides

Main Street is the stage here. Performances run every 15 to 20 minutes from about 11:00am: gunfights, comedies, dramas, and historical reenactments, with live music in the Golden Nugget Saloon and Can Can dancers on the outdoor Opera House Stage. Between shows you can duck into the jail, the school house, Doc Holliday’s office, the blacksmith shop, and the Frontier Museum. The performers stay in character all day, and they are generous with kids who want to ask questions.

Rides and hands-on stops

The narrow-gauge train ride and the Adventure of Ricochet Rick and Johnny Ringo mini golf course are both included with admission. The horse-drawn stagecoach runs $7.00 per seat. There is also a gold and gem mine to pan, a barnyard, a chuckwagon camp, and a Native American village. Frontier Frank’s handles lunch, and between the General Store and Wild Bill’s Trading Post, most kids leave wearing a hat.

Planning Your Visit

The season runs May through October: weekends in May and June, seven days a week from July through Labor Day, then weekends again in September and October, when Spooky Wild West City and the separately ticketed Haunted Wild West City take over the grounds. Gates open at 10:30am and close at 5:00pm. For 2026, adult admission is $37 online versus $45 at the gate, and $32 online for children and seniors versus $39. This has never been a big park, and for a lot of families that’s the draw: no hour-long lines, no parking shuttle, and a ticket price that doesn’t require a budget meeting.

Military, first responders, nurses, and teachers get a discount with valid ID, and groups of 20 or more get a special rate. It pairs nicely with a morning at Waterloo Village about three miles up the road, or an afternoon around Lake Hopatcong.

You’ll find Wild West City at 50 Lackawanna Drive in Stanhope, a half mile up from Route 206 after Exit 25 off I-80. It’s open daily through Labor Day and weekends into October, and the calendar at wildwestcity.com is the place to check show schedules, special event weekends, and any weather closures before you head out.