Cheyenne boasts a public art project featuring 30 8-foot-tall, fiberglass, painted boots around the city. Above, the Book Boot.

Photo courtesy Richard Brady

The Pony Express Boot

Photo courtesy Richard Brady

Deer and the Antelope Play Boot

Photo courtesy Richard Brady

Memories of the Old West Boot

Photo courtesy Richard Brady

WY Women First to Vote Boot

Photo courtesy Richard Brady

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A few years ago I was in Cheyenne to document the return of the World's Largest Steam Locomotive, and while shooting photos in and around the Union Pacific Train Station, I noticed some rather large cowboy boots, each one painted in different colors and had different designs to boot, no pun intended.

I found out that the station had a small visitor's booth, and it was there I was given a brochure which explained about the boots I had seen, along with a map showing where these boots were located around the city. I thought it would be great to shoot a few of them someday and recently I found myself returning from a trip to Kansas City, Missouri, so I booked a room for two nights in Cheyenne to explore these boots.

The project is called, “These Boots are made for Talking!” It started as a joint project of the Cheyenne Depot Museum Foundation and the Downtown Development Authority. The boots were sponsored by local businesses and auctioned off at a fundraiser, which netted roughly $100,000 raised going to the Cheyenne Depot Museum Endowment Fund to benefit the museum.

Each fiberglass boot stands 8 feet tall, and was painted by one or more of the areas creative and talented artists. The project theme was “If this boot could talk, what a story it would tell.”  There is also an Audio Tour available that allows you to listen to each artist explain his or her boots theme. I did not partake in the audio tour but I did see some visitors using that method to hear about the boots they found.

There are 30 of these hand-painted 8-foot boots located in the downtown area as well as several parks around Cheyenne. I will say the brochure and map are right on the money as far as where any of the boots you want to see is located. The boots are all wonderful and as you might imagine, colorful too! With the map in hand, it's kind of a scavenger/treasure hunt all rolled into a day of fun.

Each boot design is unique and some are tied into the business they sit at or the business that won the boot, though there were several that had more of a historic design or theme on it commemorating a time of Wyoming Western lore.

I was able to locate 18 of the boots out of the 30 total that are out there. It was great fun searching for them, then to figure out the best way to shoot photos of each one I found. I must add that several of the boots were not in great locations for photography, but hey it was still worth it and if I wasn't impressed with a location I just moved on to another boot. The brochure/map lists each boot’s location, along with the artists name and the name of the buyer.

It was a win-win for us as we got to stay two nights in Cheyenne, sample food at several restaurants and we enjoyed learning our way around  Wyoming’s capital city. If you’re headed to Cheyenne for any reason and you have the time, you might give the Cowboy Boot Tour a try, I think you might enjoy it.

On our way home it was brought to my attention, that the cities of Powell, Cody and Meeteetse have sort of the same thing going, only with fiberglass bears. I'm not sure  how many of these bears there are or if there might be a map listing their whereabouts, but locally this might be something to look into.