Buckhorn Exchange

Denver's oldest restaurant, established in 1893 by Henry H. Zietz. Holder of Colorado's first liquor license. The restaurant is famous for its collection of over 500 taxidermy mounts and Western memorabilia.

Henry H. "Shorty Scout" Zietz was just ten years old in 1875 when he met Colonel William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, and by twelve he was a full-fledged member of Cody's hard-riding band of scouts. It was the great Lakota leader Sitting Bull who gave the diminutive cowboy his lifelong nickname. On November 17, 1893, Zietz opened his own establishment at 1000 Osage Street near the Rio Grande Railroad yards, calling it the Rio Grande Exchange -- a saloon serving steaks to railroaders, miners, cattlemen, gamblers, and Indian chiefs. President Theodore Roosevelt dined here in 1905 and afterward enlisted Zietz as his personal hunting guide on Colorado's Western Slope. Four more presidents followed: Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Carter, and Reagan. When Colorado's prohibition began in 1916, Zietz converted the saloon into a grocery store while quietly serving loyal customers up a private staircase. After repeal, he doggedly pursued and won Colorado Liquor License No. 1, still displayed on the wall today.

The building itself -- a two-story painted brick structure with its original decorative metal ceiling and hardwood floors -- houses an 1857 white oak bar imported from Essen, Germany, 125 antique firearms, and a 575-piece taxidermy collection assembled by Zietz and his son Henry Jr. through decades of hunting. The restaurant was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. When Zietz died in July 1949, he was the last surviving member of Buffalo Bill Cody's famous scout band.

Employees and patrons say that Shorty Scout never truly left. His apparition has been seen on the second floor dressed in cowboy attire, and guests have reported hearing his distinctive laugh echoing through the dining rooms. Chairs slide across the second-story floor on their own, witnessed by multiple staff members over the years. Ground-floor employees have heard loud music, animated voices, and heavy footsteps coming from the upstairs bar, certain that a party was in full swing -- only to climb the stairs and find the room dark, silent, and empty. The sounds of disembodied voices and footsteps when no one is present are reported regularly, and silverware has been heard clanging in unoccupied dining areas. Tables have been witnessed moving across the floor without anyone touching them.

The hauntings are attributed not just to Zietz but to the generations of transient frontiersmen -- miners, cowboys, traders, and railroad workers -- who passed through the saloon during Denver's roughest decades and never left. Some staff believe the enormous taxidermy collection contributes to the unsettled atmosphere, hundreds of glass eyes staring from the walls in a building that has served continuously for over 130 years. The Buckhorn Exchange remains Denver's oldest restaurant and one of its most reliably haunted, a place where the Wild West era refuses to fade entirely into history.