Background
Frontier Village amusement park was located at the intersection of Monterey Road and Branham Lane in San Jose, California.
It opened in 1961 and closed in 1980. Laurence, or "Laurie" N. Hollings was the main designer for the park. Born in South
Africa, he settled in San Francisco with his mother when he was 14, where he went to work making theater fronts for movie
premieres. He expanded his experience by apprenticing as a set builder for the San Francisco Opera, later moving on to displays
for department store windows, museums, and the 1939 World's Fair. He was approached to create sculpture work for the Hollywood
movie King Kong, which led to modeling work for animation short features. During World War II, Hollings worked in camouflage
school, occasionally designing sets and doing miniature work for training films. After moving back to the Bay Area after the
war, Hollings moved into the amusement park business. In addition to designing Frontier Village, Hollings helped design rides
at Disneyland, Space City, Santa Cruz Boardwalk, Sonora Desert Museum, Old Tucson, San Francisco's Playland, and Happy Hollow
Zoo.