The Personality of American CitiesHungerford, Edward
History
The Personality of American Cities
Hungerford, Edward
Cities and towns -- United States; United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
In winter Denver society has a fixed program. On Monday night it
religiously attends the Broadway Theater, a playhouse which on at least
one night of the week blossoms out as gayly as the Metropolitan Opera
House. Denver assumes to prove herself the Paris of America by the
gayness of its gowns and its hats and a Denver restaurant on Monday
night after the play only seems like a bit of upper Broadway, Manhattan,
transplanted. On Tuesday afternoon society attends the vaudeville at the
Orpheum and perhaps the Auditorium or one of the lesser theaters that
night. By Wednesday evening at the latest the somewhat meager theater
possibilities of the place are exhausted and one wealthy man from New
York who went out there used to go to bed on Wednesday until Monday,
when the dramatic program began anew. For him it was either bed or the
"movies," and he seemed to prefer bed.
In summer the Broadway is closed, and Elitch's Gardens, one of the
distinctive features of the town, takes its place as a Monday
rendezvous. It is a gay place, Elitch's, with a quaint foreign touch. A
cozy theater stands in the middle of an apple orchard--part of the
one-time farm of the proprietress' father. Good taste and the delicate
skill of architect and landscape gardener have gone hand in hand for its
charm. You go out there and dine leisurely, and then you cross the long
shady paths under the apples to the theater. And even if the play in
that tiny playhouse were not all that might be expected--although the
best of actors play upon its stage--one would be in a broadly generous
mood, at having dined and spent the evening in so completely charming a
spot.
But the Parisians of Colorado are not blind to the summer joys of the
wonderful country that lies aroundabout them. They quickly become
mountaineers, in the full sense of the word. They can ride--and read
riding not as merely cantering in the park but as sitting all day in the
saddle of some cranky broncho--they can build fires, cook and live in
the open. A Denver society woman is as particular about her _khakias_ as
about her evening frocks. When these folk, experienced and
well-schooled, go off up into the great hills, they are the envy of all
the tourists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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