“New Hat” is Connie Willis’s entry in the “Dozen on Denver” series running in the Rocky Mountain News.

“Of course not,” Kane had said impatiently. “Cowboys and Indians were only in the old days. It’s 1924. Denver‘s a modern metropolis now.”

The paper also interviewed Willis about her story and writing career:

Your heroine thinks Denver looks like Chicago, rather than the Wild West she imagined. Do you think even modern people have a misconception of Denver in the ’20s?

I absolutely do. I have experienced this with some of my New York friends who are always asking me bizarre questions about what it’s like to live in the West. One of my fellow writers came out, bought herself a pink Stetson – which no one in the history of the world has worn – and then proceeded to say, “Head ’em up, move ’em out!” every time we needed to go someplace.