Fund-Raiser Attracts Pleased but Small Crowd : Benefit: Visitors to Frontier Day are greeted by entertainment, food and handmade jewelry at event for Native American foundation.

Charlie Chaplin went home sick; John Wayne didn’t even bother to show up.

Only Dr. Zacharia, a traveling tonic salesman, and Western singer Gypsy Bell were left to woo the sparse crowd--except for the Groat Brothers, who teamed up with Wyatt Earp for a mildly entertaining gunfight.

But despite the thin attendance and a downtrodden promoter, Frontier Day at the Stagecoach Inn Museum in Thousand Oaks on Sunday pleased those who paid $3 each to benefit the California Indian Council Foundation.

“It’s a bit of history,” said Deborah Ketcham, who attended Frontier Day with her husband, Chuck, and their 9-year-old son, Ryan.

“It gives you a flair for what the Conejo used to be like and the West in general,” the Thousand Oaks mother said. “It’s interesting looking at the stagecoaches, but I wouldn’t want to ride in one. It looks like it would be a rough ride.”

The president of the Thousand Oaks-based nonprofit group that hosted the fund-raiser tried to make the best of the lukewarm support the event received Sunday.

“We’re here to have a good time, and we’re going to have one,” said Richard Angulo, a Yaqui and Chumash who said his group benefits Native Americans with scholarships, food and other items they may need.

The event sought to bring to life the early days of this century, when characters such as Chaplin and cowboys and marshals such as the ones Wayne played in Hollywood movies roamed the prairies that once crossed the Conejo Valley and the rest of Southern California.

But so few people turned out for the fund-raiser that the council president said he might even lose money on the event. The foundation will now have to come up with other ways to make ends meet, Angulo said.

“We’ll have to do something because this turned out not as big as I thought it would be,” said Angulo, who said he advertised the fund-raiser on the radio and in local newspapers.

“But if we can break even and the people have fun, then it’s all right.”

Those who did attend Frontier Day were greeted with nearly a dozen entertainers and period actors dressed like cowpokes and dance hall girls, and Wyatt Earp presiding over mock trials. An impromptu jail housed those who failed to abide by the rules of frontier justice.

Museum tours, a barbecue and sale of handmade Indian arts and crafts from Chippewa’s Leather Goods also kept those who showed up interested.

“Most of the programs we do here are living history,” said John Gorham, a docent with the Stagecoach Inn Museum. “When we add the dimension of the actual actors, it seems to bring it more to life.”

At the leather goods stand, Bob Schenk, a buckskin-clad member of the Groat Brothers Wild West Show of Simi Valley, was selling bone-and-bead chokers, animal skins and $25 bags of natural pheasant feathers.

“We sell a lot of those because the Indians use them in their headdresses,” Schenk said of the bags of feathers. “There’s no plastic in any of these,” he added, looking over the $95 chokers. “They’re all handmade.”