Revisiting Wild West In Colorado

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How would you best describe the spirit of the Wild West?     

“Have you any idea of what a man must endure who leads such a life? No one can unless he lives it for himself.” (Frank James)

The true meaning of “The Wild West” always seems a fascinating enigma to me. Ever since my childhood days in Ohio, I’ve kind of idolized the heroic image of the macho American cowboy as exemplified in such old time television westerns as Chuck Conners in the Rifleman, the masked marauder in the Lone Ranger and James Garner in Maverick. Perhaps that longstanding cowboy fetish has fueled my desire to travel on roadtrips so frequently westward. For I’ve deeply desired then to confirm how cowboy settlements actually functioned during pioneer days in the mid 19th century as well as re-adapt my actions to their continued existence in present times.

So our latest driving adventure within Colorado in autumn 2024  provided a plethora of opportunities to actually observe for myself to what extent this longstanding invention of the Wild West remains alive and well. In doing so, I provide photographic evidence below that I suspect demonstrate that  the rugged cowboy individualist might have had other ideas on his(her) mind than living hard with gun battles involving outlaws/Indians, and forming their own definition of law and order. 

So let me my start as Ruth and I entered Colorado south of Interstate Highway 76 in the historic town of Sterling. A one hour tour there at the Overland Trail Museum revealed a  prairie community that evolved over half a century into a quiet country town with all the materialistic comforts experienced back home. These eastern based pioneers evidently lacked the will or simply underestimated the hardships that they would endure to press ahead for precious mineral searching or open range ranching that attracted so many who migrated westward during that time period. 

Moving south on I-76 to seven miles northeast of Denver, we took the auto drive route around the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge. You might wonder how a cowboy mentality could exist amid prime prairie land occupied by endangered buffalo, prairie dog holes, and more than 330 species of other wildlife. Well in fact it could not be so. For this former military site used in World War II for chemical weapons manufacturing would ultimately become a government owned land for environmental protection in 1986 and therefore a forbidden place for any “Wild West” living.

Many visitors to the Denver area long to visit as we did the renowned Red Rocks Amphitheater near the town of Golden to take in its spectacular vista in the adjoining Rocky Mountains. But in order to obtain a heavy dose of western cowboy history in this vicinity, we felt also compelled to ascend the short drive to nearby Lookout  Mountain, site of the Buffalo Bill Museum and gravesite. My main focus of this visit then centered around his renowned popularity as a cowboy icon during  the mid to late 19th century which culminated in his famed exhibition tour around the country of a “Wild West Show”. So I took a firsthand look at several gallery exhibits showcasing  promotions of  bronco riding, Indian competitions, cattle roping, fancy shooting and other cowboy antics that once took place in such a theatrical show environs. In doing so, I solidified the idea in my mind that Buffalo Bill sought to convey the Wild West in America mainly as an exciting time of endless freedom to do as one wished to pursue fun filled times.

All three of these previous point of views observed on this vacation about the image of the Wild West thus distort the reality of how difficult the hardships of settlement westward would be and still exists today. For I can personally attest from our frequent visits to Colorado that extreme weather conditions, long distance travel times and arid/mountainous landscapes predominately exist in this state and throughout the American west, which provides a more accurate picture about what the cowboy mentality in the Wild West really means.

I might note in this regard that while driving along icy slick, side roads south of Steamboat Springs on this vacation, some manly cowboy thoughts frequently entered my mind as my hands tightly gripped the steering wheel as I tried to keep my vehicle from sliding off in catastrophic “fishtail” fashion off the road over the next mountainous cliff. Let’s just say as a history buff, I am truly humbled that I got a chance to experience the Wild West in the more correct way.