He is backed up by members of various male choirs from local black churches to celebrate the city’s African-American heritage.

This young guy who is featured in Pittsburgh’s City Paper appears to have a future in the music industry.

Pittsburgh’s soul man Billy Price takes the stage Friday night, followed by a bluegrass lineup Saturday at Washington & Jefferson College headlined by country singer Big Kenny of Big and Rich.

More information

This sounds nearly as exciting as my witnessing today a lazy slob pedestrian who punched the driver’s side window of a slow-moving car driven by an old man who got in the way of the nutcase while he was jaywalking on Main Street. (That really happened)

Seriously, though, Billy Price has been rocking Pittsburgh for 35 years. He’s a great reason to come downtown, where they say East Wheeling Street will be shut down and loaded with food and beer vendors.

The stage has been set up in a nearby city parking lot in the 100 block of Main Street. It sounds like a party in the making.

For more info: http://www.cityofwashington200.com/index.html

This building at 931 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh, is among some of the city’s best-surviving examples of merchant architecture dating to the late 1800s.

By Scott Beveridge

PITTSBURGH, Pa. The Culture District in Pittsburgh is a great place to stop and look up at the old buildings.

The tall narrow ones especially have some of the most-interesting architectural stories to tell in this section of Downtown that is becoming vibrant again.

A quick study shows these brownstones were built in layers, almost as if their owners gave them a new top hat every few years as their businesses and families expanded. The bottom two or three floors were built first, then additional floors were added as the flow of immigrants required more living space in this downtown, which was then a major stop in the late 1800s for trade during America’s Westward Movement.

This several block section of Pittsburgh along Penn and Liberty avenues has some of the best-preserved examples of wealthy merchant architecture from that era.

The five-story commercial Richardsonian loft at 931 Penn Ave., shown above, dates to 1892, when it was built for Levi Wade as part of a block of furniture businesses. It’s among a number of similar buildings in the area with bronze plaques explaining why they are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

They are located in an area where a number of hip new restaurants have opened in response to a bustling theater district that certainly is among the best of its kind in small cities in America the size of Pittsburgh.

Exciting things are happening in this city, especially with the opening this year of the nearby luxurious and environmentally-friendly Fairmont Hotel. It’s just off the Market District, portions of which also are being renovated and restored.

This is the ninth of a series of periodic reports on specific places I’ve visited — and which you might want see to as well.

The Place: Terry Bison Ranch, south of Cheyenne, Wyoming
 

The Backstory: Often when we have visitors from overseas or the East Coast, I or we take them to Cheyenne for a better glimpse of a real Western town to show how it resembles and how it differs from the Wild West they’ve read about and seen on large and small screens. Just after crossing the Colorado-Wyoming border, I generally pull off the Interstate at the Terry Bison Ranch exit. We drive into the visitor part of the ranch and almost always spot some bison, This is actually pretty easy to do, since the “tickler herd” is kept nearby for visitors to look at and photograph. Still, it is always a thrill to see the shaggy beasts, and then we move on. A few days ago, during a Frontier Days visit to Cheyenne, I  did some of the touristy things the Terry Bison Ranch offers and learned more about this impressive operation.
 
Chris Terry established the ranch 1881 and built the original ranch house was built four years later. Eventually, Terry sold it to Senator F.E. Morgan, whose elegant city home in the heart of Cheyenne is now a bed-and-breakfast called the Nagle Warren Mansion, where I stayed. Click here for the report on my stay. This huge ranch rambles across the high plains under the big blue dome. 
 

 
The Place: The tourist part (properly called Terry Bison Ranch Resort) is an adjunct to the enormous 27,000-acre Iron Mountain Bison Ranch where thousands of bison graze to become such meat products as ribs, chuck roast, steaks, brats, buffalo chili and nuggets marketed under the Great Range Bison label. I think of this set-up like the front and back of the house in a restaurant or theater — the resort is the front of the house that the public sees and the back is the working part. Two brothers, Ron and Dan Thiel, respectively own the public and working-ranch operations. Taken as a whole, the ranch is so intertwined with the history and important people of southern Wyoming that its sign (above left) bears more than passing resemblance to the Wyoming state flag.
 
The Experience: Summer is high season at the Terry Bison Ranch Resort, which is family-friendly and also accommodates groups. You’ll find a general store stocked with souvenirs and basic groceries, trail rides, a small rodeo arena, a tiny fishing pond, old-time photo studio and assorted accommodations for people (cabins, 13-room bunkhouse, RV sites, tent camping sites) and horses (boarding stalls indoor and outdoor stalls, with or without hay). You’ll also find Kid Corral, a rustic children’s playground with old-style, non-plastic apparatus, pony rides, small Ferris wheel and a little barrel train (tickets required).
 
The main attraction for casual visitors is the Terry Town Rail Express (adults $12, children , which rambles along a two-mile loop track to the small show herd, passing corrals housing such exotic animals as ostriches, llamas and camels. Guests ride in open cars in summer and in a smaller, heated enclosed one in winter. Bags of feed pellets cost $1, and children of all ages from tots to grannies enjoy tossing them out to the animals in the bison pasture. The herd lumbers over during the lengthy stop, because they like the pellets. Even in this controlled situation, you can see alpha bulls chasing others away from a good pellet drop zone.
 

 
Most people like to look at the animals, and others like to shoot them. Looking at this tender Terry Mountain Ranch scene of a mother bison and her calf, it is hard for those of us who don’t hunt to envision raising a rifle and shooting one like here at the neighboring Iron Mountain Ranch. But for those who thrill at going for big game, Iron Mountain offers guided hunts for $500-$5,000.
 
The train respectfully passes the grave of Tinker the Bull, the ranch’s majestic stud bison who died earlier this year of old age at 35. In 1986, Ron Thin bought Tinker, a champion bull of the North Dakota Bison Association, to be the breeding bull for Terry Bison Ranch. Visitors marveled at this 2,300-pound bison bull who, in his 31 years of breeding, is estimated to have sired about 1,200 calves.
 

 
Dining: The Senator’s Steakhouse and Wild Buffalo Saloon near the Terry Bison Ranch entrance has a barn-like atmosphere, with high ceilings, lots of wood, red-checked tablecloths and lots of Western antiques and artifacts. “Taste Ticklers” and lunch items are served from 11:00 a.m. to closing, and dinner items are also available beginning at 5:00 p.m. Bison is available in numerous forms, and even people who could never shoot one enjoy eating the meat. Bison burgers, bison bratwurst, bison rib eye, bison short ribs and buffalo meatloaf. The restaurant also offers beef, chicken (called “Yardbird”), seafood and even vegetarian options. Appetizers and side dishes are heavy on fried items. Also available are a soup and salad bar, good TBR beans, a kids’ menu, desserts and a full bar. 
 

 
Location and contact information: 51 I-25 Service Rd East (Wyoming Exit 2), Cheyenne, Wyoming 82007; 307- 634-4171

I’ve been to the National Western Stock Show any number of times. I’ve also seen rodeo action at the Greeley Stampede, in Steamboat Springs, Snowmass and elsewhere in Colorado and Wyoming. And in late in winter, I’ve visited the Old West Museum in Cheyenne’s Frontier Park with its wonderful carriage collection and celebration of the rodeo lifestyle. But until yesterday, I’d never been in Cheyenne for Frontier Days, the world’s largest outdoor rodeo — which is kind of embarrassing to myself since I live just 90 miles away and have intended to go for years.

Finally, that situation was rectified at yesterday’s opening of the 114th Cheyenne Frontier Days, whose slogan is “The Daddy of ‘Em All.” The day began with a terrific parade highlighted by horses, carriages, wagons, vintage autos, marching bands and more. Elected and appoint officials, as well as the Frontier Days committee chairs, paraded on horseback or in antique carriages to underscore Wyoming’s nickname, “the Cowboy State.”

Then off to Frontier Park for a behind-the-chutes tour and a chance to walk on the soft earth of the rodeo grounds, see the chutes up close and hear a good explanation of rodeo events. Yesterday’s rodeo events, played before an audience that nearly filled the 17,000-seat stadium: three rounds each of steer wrestling, team roping and bareback bronc riding. Last night, Brooks and Dunn played during their final tour, and later in the week, the bull riders (below) take over for two nights of adrenalin action.

I was quite taken with the Indian Village. The dancers were wonderful, and the emcee, Sandy Ironcloud, a Northern Arapaho who teaches at the Wind River Indian College, not only introduced the Little Sun Drum and Dance Group (many of whom are her relatives), but explained the dances, the symbolism and the costumes. The Indians (and they don’t appear to want to be called Native Americans) bring what Sandy Ironcloud calls “our babies” to dance and carry on the traditions, sharing them with us too. Her words were very inclusive, embracing and inviting. I hope that by clicking below, you will be able to see a short YouTube video.

From a consumerist viewpoint, I was also so taken with how much at Frontier Days is free or inexpensive that, when I came home yesterday evening, I wrote a post for MileHighOnTheCheap.com, a site in partner, citing all the free and bargain activities and attractions. Click here for that post.
Cheyenne Frontier Days continues through Sunday, August 1 this year. I will have lived in Colorado for 22 years on August 15, and you can bet that it won’t be another 22 years before I return to Frontier Days.

When you take away a man’s dignity he can’t work his fields and cows, “Rain on the Scarecrow”

By Scott Beveridge

The house losing its white paint and becoming overgrown by nature caught my eye while driving along lonely Route 27 in western Minnesota about five years ago.

It especially was the tall, broken tree near the front door that convinced me pull over, turn around and go back to take a photograph of the abandoned farmhouse in the heart of America’s Great Plains. After I drove off toward Minneapolis, I thought the composition would make an interesting watercolor.

The scene then made me think of songs by John Mellencamp and Willy Nelson about farmers struggling to keep their land and those who have lost the battle to keep the property that had been in their families for generations.

I wondered, too, how long it would take before a strong wind toppled the rest of that once-mighty tree and sent it crashing into the house without anyone immediately noticing the damages.

Eventually, I sketched this house on watercolor paper and spread some paint here and there, but kept putting the painting aside.

Finally it’s taken a number of fresh brushstrokes tonight for me to decide this often-ignored painting is finished just like that house. Maybe.

I’ve toured the public rooms of the Nagle Warren Mansion on previous visits to Cheyenne, and have made a point of driving by every time I’ve been in town, just like the Trolley Tours and the horse-drawn carriage tours do, just to gaze at this magnificent mansion set in a lovely garden. There was no one named Nagle Warren or Warren Nagle. The turreted mansion was built in 1888 Erasmus Nagle, a super-rich merchant in 1888 and bought in 1910 by Francis E. Warren, an even richer businessman, governor and US Senator. Now, it enables guests to feel like aristocrats on the Western frontier during the Gilded Age. I’m enjoying every minute.

The mansion, one of the few such palatial homes remaining in Cheyenne, occupies a prominent corner at 17th and House on the fringes of Cheyenne’s historic core. The mansion is listed on National Register of Historic Places and belongs to Historic Hotels of the Rockies and probably other affiliations I don’t know about.

Open the heavy oak doors and pass into a grand hallway with parlors on each side. Wonderful details and interesting antique furnishings (and a few faithful reproductions of old lighting fixtures) load the in with atmosphere and interesting things to look at: a couple of rare nickel-plated bronze mantelpieces, a transition chandelier designed both for gaslights and electric bulbs, a face on a newel post, an elaborate lav off the library that worth going to see even if you don’t need to go. The Nagle Warren Mansion hosts special events too – private receptions with gentle entertainment (top image, below), afternoon teas, murder mystery dinners and the like.

I can’t believe my good fortune is getting a room here on the threshold of Cheyenne Frontier Days, one of the biggest rodeos around. My room is an east-facing charmer under the eaves with a an equally charming bathroom and a lucky view of one of Cheyenne’s other remaining mansions — one that happens to be for sale for anyone who wants to be a neighbor of the Nagle Warren Mansion.

The best alternative to the Pacific Ocean the school in Southwestern Pennsylvania has to offer them is the nearby murky Monongahela River.

Maybe this old clip from a former student’s appearance on the “Late Show with David Letterman” will held to dispel the notion among naive students enrolling from a distance at Cal U. the school is on the West Coast. Maybe not, but the video, above, is pretty funny.

It shows a smiling Jon Reed, who hopefully has learn better driving skills since the show first aired a couple years ago, taking Letterman’s challenge to parallel park a car in a tight space. Reed bumps his car several times into other parked cars, after Letterman takes a few shots at his school.

“I’ve never heard of the California University of Pennsylvania,” Letterman quips. “There is a California Pennsylvania? I’ll be darned.”

After the car-parking is over, Letterman pulls out a map of Pennsylvania showing the small town circled in red along the Mon south of Pittsburgh.

Letterman said – probably jokingly – that his show’s switchboard “lit up” from people wanting to know more about the borough.

What the show didn’t mention was the town was founded and named after the 1849 California Gold Rush.

People keep calling me to report outhouse sightings more than a week after I wrote a quirky story about the rise in popularity of these little buildings as their numbers have nearly weathered themselves to extinction.

One call came from an activities director at an old folk’s home where residents made miniature versions of the outdoor toilets just for fun. Someone made a clever little outhouse with a rubber snake beside the pooper, while another crafty person included a likeness of a man scaring a woman of the pot with a firecracker.

An older lady who lives on her own drove from the country to the newspaper where I work in Washington, Pa., to show me a tiny replica of an outhouse she owns that someone from West Virginia molded in real chocolate. That one had a candy bunny and some edible flowers around its base. Yum.

The real one shown in the above photo can be found along Route 19 in tiny Amity, Pa. It’s not immediately known if that can is in working order.