Jack Kerouac spent ten wild days and nights here in the summer of 1947, crawling through Skid Row, up and down Larimer, Curtis and Welton. Jazzing at the Rossonian, tête-à-têting with Alan Ginsberg and Neal Cassady at the Colburn Hotel. That brief meeting forever intertwined the destinies of the Beat hero and the Queen City of the Plains.

In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of On the Road, Kerouac's love letter to Denver (the original manuscript is currently on display at the Central Public Library), we've mapped some of his stopovers -- as well as those of a host of other writers who’ve name-checked our city over the years, from Whitman to Didion to Proulx to Cussler.

We hope you enjoy the ride. And if you find any pit stops that we missed (fiction only, please), e-mail us.

Paint the Town Read

Jack Kerouac's back, and Denver's literary scene is on a scroll.

Illustrations by Kenny Bé