A lot of people mistook the Crazy Horse Saloon to be a strip club, but most of them were just confused from having actually visited the place. In reality, it was a daytime old-style burlesque show on a rotating stage featuring anatomically correct nude women and low brow humor.
The owner was Sid King. He started out in the 1950s, operating The Calvert Inn at 1211 East Colfax Avenue, running burlesque shows in the back by the juke box. It was renamed the Crazy Horse in 1962 and within a few years, Sid contrived a cunning plan to build a rotating bar within its confines.
Outside, the building had white stucco walls and wrought iron balconies that gave it a distinctive Mediterranean flavor that clashed perfectly well with anything else you could ever think of within the confines of Colorado.
It seemed to have a natural list when the sun bounced off the blinding white walls, as if sunlight, itself, were the problem. It was the kind of architectural sketchiness that could only be amplified by the promise of naked women and watered down drinks. It was a more complete business solution than IBM and the place quickly earned an unrivaled notoriety on a national scale back at a time when Denver was considered just something you had to scrape off the bottom of your shoe.
The list of celebrity guests and luminaries that have visited its hallowed halls over the years is quiet impressive, and in fact, probably rivals any other place in town that isn’t a concert hall or the governor’s mansion. That will be covered in part II.
