Denver Blends Old and New Wests : Colorado’s progressive metropolis combines a rich cowboy heritage with modern culture.

Buffalo Bill Cody, the legendary Indian fighter, Pony Express rider, entrepreneur and prodigious boozer, caused this town a passel of problems from his heyday as an icon of the Old West until well after his death in 1917. Still, folks here loved him.

A folk hero throughout the United States and Europe for his Wild West shows, Cody died here on a visit to his sister. He was given the biggest funeral in Denver’s history and buried with great ceremony on Lookout Mountain outside town, although he much preferred Wyoming.

Then, in the 1950s, a gaggle of sodden citizens of Cody, Wyo., decided to launch a foray south to recover what they considered their just due--Buffalo Bill Cody’s body. Only word of the caper got to Denver, and tanks from the Colorado National Guard were deployed at the grave site. This had a sobering effect on the Cody gang and the misbegotten maneuver was aborted. Denver city fathers, just to be safe, dug Cody up and reburied their idol under tons of concrete.

Denver’s past isn’t quite as checkered as Buffalo Bill’s, although the city has had its ups and downs. Money and people poured in first with the 1870 silver strike at nearby Leadville (creating the unsinkable Molly Brown’s fortune and many others’), and continued when gold was discovered at Cripple Creek two decades later. Whatever its economic vagaries, Denver soon grew from a wild frontier town to the most civilized metropolis between Chicago and San Francisco.

The Old Navarre Building, now the home of the Museum of Western Art (containing works by such notables as Frederick Remington, Charles Russell and Georgia O’Keeffe), was--in the late 19th Century--Denver’s most opulent bordello and gambling hall. A tunnel connected it across the street with the more genteel Brown Palace Hotel, which celebrated its centennial in August.

Though Denver has not escaped the economic doldrums of other American cities, the metropolis continues to boom, what with the new Colorado Rockies major-league baseball team set to begin play next season; the world’s largest airport--a $2.7-billion facility twice the size of Manhattan--due to open sometime next year, and tourism getting a big boost with the legalization late last year of gambling in the nearby mining towns of Black Hawk and Central City (as well as at Cripple Creek, near Colorado Springs). In addition, a get-tough approach in the past few years to a terrible smog problem has succeeded in thrusting Denver into the spotlight as a model anti-pollution city.

Culturally, Denver last year opened the last of nine theaters in its Performing Arts Complex, making it the largest cultural enclave in the country after New York’s Lincoln Center.

How long/how much? Give Denver two or three days, perhaps another for a day trip to Colorado Springs and its beautiful Air Force Academy, or into the Rockies just 30 miles to the west. Lodging costs are very reasonable by today’s big-city prices, as is the excellent and diversified dining.

Getting settled in: The historic Oxford Alexis Hotel--a year older than the Brown Palace--was completely renovated in 1983 to a charming hotel of 83 guest rooms brimming with French and English antiques, wood-and-marble fireplaces and all the amenities one could hope for. Its McCormick’s Fish House & Bar claims to have the best seafood in town.

One of the best deals in town is the mid-city Comfort Inn, which provides a complimentary breakfast (the only meal served) of coffee, juice, cereal and muffins. It’s modern in every respect, with smallish but attractive bedrooms, some with great views of the city and Rockies. The inn is connected by a second-floor overpass to the Brown Palace, where some guests take their meals.

The Cambridge Hotel is a small but very upscale place just outside the town’s center. Bedrooms are individually decorated with great flair; old silver pieces and bowls of potpourri are scattered about. Cambridge’s Profile Restaurant is one of the prettiest we’ve seen of late, very romantic with its fresh flowers, banquettes and gold-framed pictures.

Regional food and drink: Apart from great steaks, many menus highlight seasonal game (quail, pheasant, elk, antelope, venison) and the most buffalo served anywhere in the United States. Denver is also one of the few large cities where you’ll find Rocky Mountain oysters (ask your waiter); they’re delicious.

Beer rates high as a beverage here, since Denver is the country’s largest brewing center, and the town has half a dozen brew pubs known by every suds addict in town for their on-site production.

Dining well: The Buckhorn Exchange is Denver’s oldest restaurant, celebrating its 100th birthday next year. The walls are completely covered with game heads, old firearms and pictures of bygone celebrities looking important. Try the Rocky Mountain oysters ($6.50), or the elk steak ($22), buffalo prime rib ($24) or smokehouse buffalo burger ($6.50). The alligator tail and smoked buffalo sausage are both great. There are life-size statues of Buffalo Bill and John Wayne at the top of the stairs, a two-headed calf above them. The Buckhorn is a great fun place.

Wynkoop Brewing Company is always filled with locals beneath its original pressed-tin ceiling. A rather short menu lists such no-nonsense dishes as bangers and mash ($4.95) and shepherd’s pie ($5.50) and other no-nonsense dishes, plus a six-beer taster for $3.50.

A bit more dignified than either of the above is Trinity Grille. At the heart of downtown, the grill is always packed with locals at lunch, gathered at the great long bar or spooning it down surrounded by the dark-wood paneling. The specialties here are fresh seafood, steaks, chops and rolls to die for. Try the London broil ($10.95), Chesapeake crab cakes ($14.95) or a formidable selection of other main dishes at dinner, most in the above price range. The luncheon menu lets one off lighter with a clutch of sandwiches, salads and soups, with nothing priced above $7.95.

Going first-class: The Brown Palace Hotel is sheer delight, from its atrium lobby with filigreed ironwork around the galleries six floors above, red-leather furniture, marble-top tables and a profusion of greenery and flowers. There’s a warmth here that seems to harks backs to the hotel’s early days.

Bedrooms are sumptuous indeed, furnished in burled walnut and fin de siecle Art Deco. The Palace Arms restaurant is so Empire that Napoleon himself would weep with joy, surely, at the sight of his own dispatch case and dueling pistols. The food is a formidable array of the likes of deep-fried wild-boar ravioli with a warm goat-cheese sauce, smoked rabbit sausage, and seared breast of pheasant with a port glace.

On your own: Start with a stroll through Larimer Square, a restored section of Denver’s oldest street, with its 18 Victorian buildings, gas street lamps, hanging flower baskets, outdoor cafes and quiet courtyards. Then stop by the Museum of Western Art.

Don’t miss the Denver Art Museum and its outstanding collection of American Indian art.

There is also a Black American West Museum honoring black cowboys and a museum for Molly Brown, who became famous for surviving the Titanic and building a glorious Victorian mansion with her silver fortune.

Sports fans might like the Gart Brothers Sports Castle, the world’s largest sporting goods store, where shoppers use golf carts to cruise a sales floor the size of three football fields.

More literary types may visit The Tattered Cover, the largest independent bookstore in America, its four floors holding 400,000 volumes.

GUIDEBOOK

Diversions in Denver

Getting there: From Los Angeles, fly United, Continental, Delta or America West to Denver. An advance-purchase, round-trip ticket now costs $220.

Where to stay: Oxford Alexis (1600 17th St., 303-628-5400; $130 double, $75 weekends); Comfort Inn (401 17th St., 303-296-0400; $65 double B&B;); Cambridge Hotel (1560 Sherman St., 303-831- 1252; $110 double B&B;, $89 weekends); Brown Palace (321 17th St., 303-297-3111; $149 double, weekends from $89 double).

Where to dine: Buckhorn Exchange (1000 Osage St., 303-534- 9505); Wynkoop Brewing Company (1634 18th St., 303-297-2700); Trinity Grille (1801 Broadway, 303-293-2288).

For more information: Call the Denver Visitors Bureau at (303) 892-1502, or write (225 W. Colfax Ave., Denver, Colo. 80202) for a 140-page magazine and visitors guide listing attractions, lodging and dining, plus a foldout map. Or call (800) 489-4888 for information on the “Mile High Package,” which allows visitors to book hotels for up to 50% off regular room rates.