How do you celebrate a city's birthday?

Put a giant candle on top of city hall?

Bake a cake big enough to win a Guinness world record and pass out slices to passers-by?

Hand out funny hats and paper horns and tell everyone to raise a ruckus?

OK. I'm being facetious. But the question actually requires serious thought: When it comes to a city's past, what values and traditions do you hope to highlight, and how do you reflect those values in the festivities?

That's a question Rocky editor and publisher John Temple recently found himself pondering. The city was nearing its 150th birthday, Nov. 22, as was the Rocky, which will mark its 150th year in April.

With archives dating back to 1859, we could easily run retrospectives galore. But Temple envisioned something more - something closer to the heart of what makes a city great.

"Too often when newspapers observe such events they spend all their time looking back at their own work over the years. Readers see nothing new," he wrote in a weekly column announcing his birthday idea.

"Why not, instead, celebrate the cultural richness of our community by giving some of its most creative individuals a platform to share their work with a huge audience? Why not leave behind for future generations a new set of stories casting light on how we reached this day?"

In short, why not offer stories to celebrate our most precious asset: our shared history - or, put another way, our shared stories?

Behold the result.

This special section was inspired by a similar project in London's The Times. It contains 12 original stories, 11 of them commissioned by the Rocky from Colorado authors. Drawing on the guidance of Denver author Sandra Dallas, Denver publishing consultant Laurie Brock and former Tattered Cover book buyer Margaret Maupin - who provided valuable help and input throughout the project - we chose writers of diverse backgrounds and styles.

We then instructed them to follow two simple rules: Pick different decades of Denver's past in which to set each story and include the words "Larimer Street" at least once in every piece.

And so they did.

With abandon.

They wrote of cowboys galloping alongside trains barreling toward Denver, of tents pitched on the banks of Cherry Creek. They wrote of prospectors, World War I soldiers, Jack Kerouac, of skid-row bars, pawn shops and legendary establishments such as the Oxford Hotel and Lafitte's - each story passing through, and sometimes lingering on, one key street in Denver's history.

We're thrilled with the writers who participated. But let's face it, there are so many others we could have tapped: nationally revered authors such as Dan Simmons, Kent Haruf, John Dunning, Francine Mathews, Stephen White, Rick Reilly . . .

Let's just say that if you lined up all the worthy authors in this Mile High City and environs, you'd have a row that's a mile wide, with substance a mile deep.

Not that that should surprise anyone. This is a city, after all, with a rich literary history.

It's the place where playwright (and former Rocky reporter) Mary Chase imagined a 6-foot-tall rabbit named Harvey. Where Damon Runyon furthered a writing career that would eventually lead to the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls. Where Jack Kerouac ran with Neal Cassady, forging experiences immortalized in On the Road. And where William Barrett conceived his simple and poignant Lilies of the Field, a novel that later inspired the movie starring Sidney Poitier.

(I can't help remembering Barrett's daughter, Marge, who spent her career writing for the Rocky. Marge lived in a house filled with so many books - a legacy of her literary father, no doubt - that the floors had begun to sag.)

And let's not forget Thomas Hornsby Ferril, Katherine Anne Porter (another former Rocky reporter), Leon Uris, Hunter S. Thompson, John Fante, James Michener and John Williams - all whose lives intersected with the state, if not always the city.

No doubt a slew of new writers are penning fiction in the stolen hours of their busy lives, just waiting to be discovered.

Which brings me to the last story in our section, the winner of our readers contest. We asked readers to complete our A Dozen on Denver series by writing a tale set in Denver's future, using the same "Larimer Street" rule as the other stories. Nearly 200 readers responded.

They sent us wildly varying tales, some filled with Buck Rogers imagery, others spinning visions of an apocalyptic future in which technology is in ruins. Many contain familiar names, such as two of Denver's prominent "Johns" - Hickenlooper and Elway.

In the end, one piece stood above the rest: Heirlooms, by Robert Pogue Ziegler. While Ziegler, 35, paints a bleak picture of Denver's future, he does so with haunting, heart-rending prose, proving that when it comes to our region's well of talent, we have much to celebrate indeed.

We hope you'll take the time to read all 12 stories. You can also go online, where you'll find recordings of each tale read by Denver actress and voice-over professional Gabriella Cavallero, as well as author interviews.

Consider it our gift to you - a thank-you for allowing us to serve the city for 150 years. Here's hoping our shared story continues far into the future, a plot forever transforming itself.

Now get out there and blow a few horns. Did I mention we have a birthday to celebrate?

thornp@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5419

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