But like many 1950s-era Wild West theme parks, Carson City & Indian Village is a ghost town. In fact, it's more ghost than town. Most of its buildings were hauled away years ago. Now, the land itself is for sale.

Palenville apartment owner and manager Gary Kistinger is looking for $750,000 for the 100-acre former park along Route 32 in Catskill.

But forget about resurrecting childhood memories and restoring the rodeos, train rides and stage-coach stickups that were staples of the genre.

"There's just not a market for that kind of thing here anymore," he said last week at his office in a former motel adjacent to the park.

Kistinger, who visited Carson City as a kid, said he would like to see the park go as a family estate or compound. In the two years he has been trying to sell it, he also has fielded queries from church groups looking for places to hold retreats and people interested in mountain-biking terrain.

But there haven't been any offers.

"There are just 48,000 people in all of Greene County, so it's hard to do anything commercial here," he said.

The park first opened in the mid-1950s, drawing families north from New York City and south from Albany. Sometime in the 1980s, David R. Osborn bought the roadside attraction and tried to expand it, Kistinger said.

But changing tastes and travel pat terns brought hard times to it and other Catskill resorts. By 1995, Osborn had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. He went into bankruptcy again in 1997, then pleaded guilty three years later in federal court to lying in that filing, underreporting the expenses of Carson City in an attempt to keep it. Osborn was sentenced to three years' probation.

By 1999, the county put the park, closed for several years, up for auction. The structures were classified as props, instead of buildings, and were sold off separately.

But some remain. Kistinger has an old turn-of-the-century boarding house, which he converted into four apartments. There also are a horse stable and 40 acres of cleared fields.

Kistinger doesn't think commercial use would work, though not everyone is so sure.

"It seems to be a prime location, the way our county is growing," said Debbie Zetterlund, executive director of the Greene County Chamber of Commerce. "I would certainly hope it could be developed into something."

The Greene County Department of Planning and Economic Development typically doesn't promote residential sites, said Irene Norsworthy, an economic developer in the office. But she said her office fielded an inquiry months ago from a group looking to establish a business.

The group inquired about loans available, but didn't leave information about what type of business they had in mind. Still, Norsworthy said the county is in the midst of seeking a consultant to help it develop a comprehensive economic development strategy that might also identify potential development sites.