Street Breakfast: Celebrating the cowboy way of life

(COLORADO SPRINGS) — Downtown Colorado Springs will soon be filled with the sights and sounds of the Western way of life. The Colorado Springs Western Street Breakfast will take place on June 20 from 5:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. attracting people of all ages for a morning of fun to support our southern Colorado local military and their families.

“It is the advent, it’s the start of the Western season in the Colorado Springs Pikes Peak area because there’s lots to do between Calhan, at the El Paso County Fair, all the way up to Woodland Park and their rodeo, and their fairs, too,” said Pikes Peak Range Rider, Brett Axton.

The most important meal of the day is the one that brings the southern Colorado community together, with sizzling pancakes, eggs, and the newest addition of sausage.

“You get a token, and you get eggs and pancakes,” Axton said. “The second year in a row, we’ve had sausage. For all the years prior, we didn’t have sausage, now we were fortunate enough to have some sausage, so you get some protein.”

A token presentation was held on June 5 inviting the public to attend this special event, where large commemorative tokens were presented to City and County Commissioner representatives.

The token is symbolic to many who are regulars to the breakfast like Axton, who recalled childhood memories of attending the event with his family.

“I know when I was growing up here, born and raised, that was a big deal,” Axton explained. “Mom would keep our tokens and put them in our baby books because we were little cowboys and cowgirls. We’d dress up and go down there and be cowboy for the day, get syrup all over us, eat on hay bales, and listen to the music. It’s the same great Western music that we had 80 years ago.”

The Pikes Peak Range Riders play a crucial role in the preservation of the cowboy way of life and sharing the roots of the Pikes Peak region’s western past with the next generation.

“There’s two fellows that were involved in that, Kenneth Brookhart and a fellow by the name of Everett Conover,” Ted Severn, President of the Pikes Peak Range Rider Foundation. “They were businessmen, they were also ranchers, and they were interested after World War II getting the rodeo going again. So, in order to draw attention to the rodeo, what they did was they gathered about 36 of their friends and they made this first ride.”

The actions of Brookhart and Conover marked the beginning of the Range Riders, with this first ride dating back to 1949, and continuing since. At 8:00 a.m. on June 20, the Range Riders will ride on horseback through downtown and pay respects to those who came before them.

“I’ll tell you, the favorite [part] for me is seeing a little kid that’s never been around a horse,” Axton said. “Just their eyes light up and we’ve got great horses, and they’ll pet him and talk to him, and then say, ‘Hey, you can be a Range Rider someday.’ ‘Yeah, that’s what I want to do, I want to be a Range Rider.'”

As each year passes, this tasteful tradition has left its mark on the city, with more people joining the special celebration of the cowboy way of life.

“Over the last six years, we’ve gradually grown from 4,000 in attendance, to last year, I think we were probably a little over 10,000 attendees,” Severn said. “So, the street is full of happy people.”

The meal will cost $5.00 per person with proceeds going to support our southern Colorado military members and their families. Over the last 50 years, the community has helped raise $500,000.

“When you know that what you’re doing is going to benefit the men and women that wear the uniform, but also their families, it makes it easy to do, because you can give up your week of work and go promote the rodeo,” said Axton.

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