The movie “Blazing Saddles” debuted when I was a junior in high school, and the only thing I remember from that time is everyone talking about the campfire scene after all the cowboys had eaten beans.
Of course, this satirical Western film is so, so, so much more. According to Hollywood lore, it was one of the few movies of the 1970s to touch on racism. Sheriff Bart is Black and the people of Rock Ridge are aghast when the governor sends him to work in their town.
For years I’ve watched “Blazing Saddles” whenever I find it on TV. Every time I laugh at the one-liners many racist and sexist and I think, “There’s no way you could make this movie today.”
The Colorado Department of Transportation’s massive project to reconstruct a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 70 is creating concerns for nearby residents in the Globeville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods. (Video by Skyler Ballard & Katie Klann)
On Sept. 12, 1964, hundreds crowded across freshly-painted highway stripes to watch the dedication of a new $12.5 million, 2.6-mile stretch of Interstate 70 designed to ease traffic congestion on what had been a four-lane street.
City and state officials joined highway engineers as an enormous ribbon was cut and onlookers applauded the first ever segment of I-70. Shortly after, the first vehicles poured through the section, headed to destinations east and westbound on a freeway that connected Jackson Street to the Valley Highway (present-day Interstate 25). The new interstate would make room for 38,500 vehicles and replace 46th Avenue, roundly criticized as the biggest traffic headache in the Denver Metro area.