Happy Birthday On The Road

It was 50 years ago today, that the travel journal charting the 1951 bohemian oddysey of the not-yet-beloved-by-free-spirits-everywhere Jack Kerouac, hit book stands dorm-room shelves, changing America's literary landscape and putting the Beat writers at the forefront of American consciousness. On The Road broke and subsequently changed the rules, it beckoned a new social era in this county if not contributing directly to it, and it mentioned our beloved cow town. And you know how we go apeshit for fixtures of popular culture that so much as acknowledge our flyover state.

But it isn't the only literary treat to be informed by, or set in, or simply of Denver. In fact, it's not even our best piece of literature. Hell, it's not even our best piece of Beat literature. Check out our interactive map of literary Denver -- featuring Alan Ginsburg's Howl, my vote for awesomest Denver mention in prose -- and explore the wonders of narrative art that lessen, ever so slightly, our collective, square-state Napoleon complex. Word(s). -- Sean Cronin