Personal Best: Sid Wilson Shares His City

The Best of Denver 2022 is out, full of people, places and things we love about the Mile High City. For our 39th edition, we asked some Denver residents to share their personal bests. Here's how professional guide and tourism legend Sid Wilson responded to our questions.

Where's the best place to take visitors to Denver?

Golden. It’s like Walt Disney built a mini-Colorado theme park. You’ve got steam locomotives at the railroad museum, an Old West-looking downtown, a beautiful walk along a mountain river up into a canyon. There are hang gliders, kayakers, tubers and mountain climbers – and every other person is on a bicycle. And then there’s beer. You can smell the hops from Coors, and there are breweries and beer gardens on every corner. You can go on a mountain walk along a river, have a beer with mountain views, and you’re only twelve miles from downtown Denver! And the parking is free!

What's your favorite place in Denver?

I’d say the Black American West Museum, because that’s where it all came together for me. Growing up in Brooklyn, I loved Western movies: “Shane! Come back, Shane!!” But I never was in the West until I was stationed at Fort Carson after Vietnam. The mountains were something special to me and drew me back out here later. At first I thought that there were not a lot of people in Denver like me. And then I became involved with the Black American West Museum and discovered there were a lot of people like me in Colorado. There were Black mountain men, and miners, and cowboys, and saloon keepers and newspapermen and hoteliers and restaurant owners. I got involved with the Jim Beckwourth Club, taking Black kids on hikes and skiing in the mountains for the first time, and it opened up a whole new world for me...and them. My dad was a Tuskegee Airman in World War II. My son, Theo, is now a historian host on the History Channel program I Was There. History is a part of my life, and there is an amazing amount of African American history in Colorado that is almost unknown to most people. No one will regret spending an afternoon at the Black American West Museum.

What's the best special-occasion spot in Denver?

I’ve really enjoyed evening functions at the Four Mile House, because you don’t often see it at night. With the house lit up at night and the nice grounds and the barn animals, you can really picture what it was like here in 1859 when this was a stagecoach stop.

What's your go-to restaurant in Denver?

Randall’s. It’s the last of a long line of restaurants dating back over decades to Pierre’s Supper Club, and then Randall’s on Welton. That was a special place, sometimes with a twenty-piece band. Those days are gone, but for Southern food and catfish, Randall’s on York Street is still special.

Where's the best spot to shop in Denver?

Cherry Creek North has become something special. It’s a new downtown filled with art and flower baskets and expanded outdoor seating, so it’s fun to go to there and people watch, window shop, have a drink or dinner, or just walk around – even if you’re not doing serious shopping.

If you have a few spare hours, what's your favorite thing to do in Denver?

Sit on a bar stool. That sounds bad, but I love to just walk into a bar for an hour and talk to the customers. I have some regular places I stop by, but I’m always on the lookout for new ones. It’s not about having a beer. It’s about meeting people and hearing their stories. Denver’s a gathering spot. It always has been. The old mountain men and trappers used to gather here, and today, it’s a whole different breed of young people looking for something they think they’re going to find in Denver. Some of them do, but all their stories are fascinating.

How about a free day?

Every day is a “free day” in Denver. What to do? You don’t have to do anything! Just being under the blue sky and enjoying the weather here and the wide-open spaces is enough. But for an extra special day, it’s the mountains. Doesn’t matter what you do. I love snowboarding, hiking, horseback riding, camping, fishing, rafting. I’ve done it all.

What's the best thing about living in Denver?

That’s easy: the people. Most of our “diverse tribe" is here by choice, drawn to the heart of the Rocky Mountain West, where they have embraced the history, climate, the recreational lifestyle, the love of being outdoors and the beauty of Colorado...and they’ve accepted all that comes with that: forest fires, snowstorms, tornadoes, droughts, hail, lightning, fierce winds, floods. It wasn’t easy living here in the 1800s, and sometimes it’s not easy today. But the people who live here and enjoy this place are special. The Denver Post’s logo said it best: “It’s a privilege to live in Colorado.”

Sid Wilson is president of A Private Guide, a licensed group charter transportation and touring service company that he founded in 1991. Winner of the 2019 Historic Denver Ann Love award, he’s also been inducted into the Denver & Colorado Travel Hall of Fame.