William “Doc” Rowan was a ham in the vein of P.T. Barnum, the circus king of the Gilded Age. For more than 20 years, Doc Rowan shone above Fourth of July crowds in Ouray, a Colorado town founded in 1876, dressed in his signature all-white garb—suit, shirt, shoes, socks, hat and even his whiskers. After parading down Main Street on a white horse, he delivered his annual recitation of the Gettysburg Address from the balcony of the Beaumont Hotel and then supervised the town’s firew
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