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Ah, the Stock Show, when Denver--for just a few days--remembers some of its roots. It used to be a really big deal. Everyone in town would dress in western clothing. A lot of the retail stores (many of them still downtown then) would do as much business as they did for Christmas. The bars and restaurants would be swarming with authentic ranchers, farmers, and cowboys. (In the late '60's an occasional altercation of "cowboys and hippies" would occur.)
These days, most metro Denver residents don't even know the Stock Show is going on. A few years back, they got a funny reminder. A trailer load of steers going to the stock show got loose on the elevated portion of I-70. The "not-urban-cowboy" Denver Police had no success rounding the steers up in the traffic jam. Finally, some cowboys on horseback from the Stock Show complex rode up onto the freeway and rounded the critters up out of the snarled traffic jam. How many places has that ever happened in recent history?
And, God Bless the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver (the only real "first class" hotel in Denver, notwithstanding the modern Johnny-come-lately overstated joints that make that claim these days), for they still put the Grand Champion Steer on display in a pen in the lobby. A "tip of the Stetson," if you will, to some of the industries and people that actually helped build the joint--and the state.
Parenthetically, it was not until a relatively few years ago, that a couple of city ordinances were removed from the books in Denver. One was that cattle could not be driven the "wrong way" down a one-way street. The other ordinance (and I can't remember if it was in Denver or one of the surrounding cities) was one requiring a hitching post in front of every business.
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Running of the Longhorns
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