Trail Dust Town is a historical outdoor shopping center located in Tucson, Arizona.
Although Trail Dust Town operates as a for-profit shopping mall, on its grounds exists a great number of historical artifacts, including an Allan Herschell merry-go-round, the Fiesta del Presidio carousel, which was manufactured in the 1920s that still contains its original wooden horses and benches.
Trail Dust Town also features a historical museum, the Museum of the Horse Soldier, which chronicles the history of Western cavalry and dragoon units. It is notable for its large display of Western history and military history, including original period costumes, uniforms, weapons, firearms, and ephemera.
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The shopping mall was built from the abandoned set of an unfinished Glenn Ford western movie set that was left outside of the populated area of Tucson in the 1950s.[1]
The Trail Dust Town Railroad is a narrow-gauge, motorized train that runs on a looped 24" track. The railroad loads patrons at Trail Dust Town's train depot, which is modeled after the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western station located in Wallace, New York. The engine, named "C. P. Huntington", and numbered 287, pulls two passenger cars around the town and passes through several theme areas, two tunnels, and across several working, but miniature crossings.
Generally performed two or three times an evening, Trail Dust Town's stunt show is a slapstick comedy homage to the wild west. The shows, which vary from twenty to thirty minutes in length, are performed adjacent to the Trail Dust Town depot, in an area that seats around 125 patrons. Most shows feature falls from the top of two story buildings, dynamite explosion effects and lots of "rough and tumble" choreographed fights. There is no charge for admission, however, performers ask for a donation to off-set the cost of the show upon exiting.