Old Town (Burlington): On Colorado's eastern plains, right next door to Kansas, is this living-history museum, containing two dozen buildings (many from the 1880s). Watch a cancan, melodrama, or gunfight in a setting more reminiscent of Dodge City than Colorado's Victorian mountain towns.

Creede, Lake City, and Leadville: With extensive historic districts and false-fronted buildings, these mountain towns take you back to the time when Butch Cassidy, Doc Holliday, and other infamous dudes stalked the saloons in search of the next card game.

Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site (La Junta): Reconstructed to the way it appeared in the 1830s and 1840s, this adobe fort shows life as it really was, when pioneers spent their time either trading peaceably with or fighting off plains warriors.