He grew up in rural California and developed an interest in gun spinning from watching old Westerns, and when he moved to Chicago to pursue a career in comedy, he fell into a job at Donley’s. “I look back on Donley’s as kind of my fun dorm days with a bunch of college-aged kids, hanging out with them at night and playing pranks backstage,” Mr. Dillon said. He is still in touch with some of his former colleagues, some 20 years later. Mr. Dillon wasn’t aware the property was up for sale.

Taylor Fryza, who directs and acts in the park’s live shows, remembered visiting the town as a girl. “When you’re a little kid, it’s like stepping into a different world,” she said. Eventually she went to acting school in New York and returned home. She said she was not worried about the place being for sale. “You just put your best foot forward and do as many shows as you can,” she said.

When it comes to the sale effort, the Donleys have displayed a little showmanship of their own. In what the family admits was largely a publicity stunt, they put the Wild West Town up for sale in last year’s Christmas catalog of Hammacher Schlemmer, where it stood out among the massage wands, radio-controlled toys and exercise gadgets. Many years earlier — in 2003 — they listed it on eBay for $12 million, though they didn’t get many serious offers then, either.

And so the operation chugs along, in nostalgia mode for some of its owners. “As much as we enjoyed it, as much as we loved it, it was hard work seven days a week,” Mike Donley said, adding that the grandchildren “didn’t see that as a future for them.”

Larry and Helene Donley live in a house right next to the amusement park and work on the site every day. The family jokes they are likely to ask the next owners for a job. The brothers say they aren’t forcing a sale.

“If they want to find another proprietor during their lifetimes, I’d rather let them do that,” Mike Donley said of his parents. “It’s another challenge for them.”