Cowboy Finery

"I see you found the coolest place in Denver!" A doorman at my hotel was commenting on my shopping bag from Rockmount Ranch Wear. It's one of the oldest western apparel stores in the United States. Rockmount founder Jack Weil passed away last year, at the age of 107. He came in to work for four hours a day as recently as a couple of weeks before his death. Bills of sale are still handwritten and then skewered on an office spike, although Jack apparently learned to use a computer for managing inventory. There was one new-fangled thing he couldn't abide: barcodes. The staff said he lost a military contract because of it; nobody ever knew what he had against them.

Oldest working CEO Jack Weil dies at 107. [Link]

Rockmount Ranch Wear [Link]

Photo by bittermelon. Copyright Commons, some rights reserved.