Steve sez, "It's not quite a fetish but clearly 'wild west' life is big and serious in parts of German and Czech life…"
Main Street features covered plank sidewalks, double-decker railings and cutout clapboard facades. Outside the sheriff's office, the town marshal, Big Joe – a Turkish-born character actor little more than three feet tall – obligingly poses for photos, pointing his six-gun at guests and ordering "Hände hoch!" ("Hands up!")…Pullman City, in fact, is one of more than a dozen Wild West theme parks and similar attractions in Europe, from Spain to Scandinavia. I visited several others, including two parks in the Czech Republic and one near Vienna.
They all form part of a multifaceted Wild West subculture in Europe that includes everything from country music festivals and cowboy saloons to an established rodeo circuit. Tens of thousands of Europeans study (or even live like) trappers, American Indians or other frontier archetypes as a hobby. They join clubs, dress up in elaborate costumes and often take to the woods on weekends to live in tepees or sleep "cowboy style" under the stars. "People dream of a free, beautiful country, of romantic campfires and heroes in the saddle," said Detlef Jeschke, a Nuremberg-born former champion European rodeo cowboy who is Pullman City's program manager.
(Thanks, Steve!)
