Dotting The Landscape: Going nuts: Severance, CO

Population: 3,165

Area: 2.2 Sq. Miles
County: Weld
Motto: "Where the geese fly and the bulls cry"
Visited On: October 15, 2011
Cast of characters: High Country Newsman

Howdy, folks, this is the introductory post for Dotting The Landscape's Western edition. I'll thank you kindly to remove your hats and firearms before entering.

As a former central Illinois resident myself now living in northern Colorado, I wanted to start you flatlanders out with a town that wouldn’t freak you out too much (a lot of Colorado mountain towns are isolated dystopian hippie-ocracies that are the realization of a half-assed Hunter S. Thompson story). Enter Severance, Colorado.

Severance actually looks like a lot of the small Illinois towns already profiled on Dotting The Landscape. Surrounded by corn? Check. The Fighting Illini on the local bar’s TV? Check.

A pickup full of “equine senior” horse chow? Check.

But there’s a couple key differences between Severance and the prairie towns of central Illinois.
One is the lovely snow-capped Rockies about 20 miles away. (Sadly, Blackberry cameras are really, really bad at capturing loveliness. Trust me on this one).

The second difference is that Severance’s main industry is servin’ up hot-n-juicy deep-fried bull testicles.

That’s thanks entirely to Bruce’s Bar, by far the largest and most prominent establishment in Severance.

Bruce’s isn’t so much a bar that serves Rocky Mountain oysters as it is an organization on a single-minded crusade to assist and glorify in the eunuchization of every bull.

#OccupyCowStreet

"You folks ain't from around here, are ya?"

Former owner Bruce Ruth, who all young male bulls are warned will come get them in their sleep if they don't behave

Inside, Bruce’s looks much like your run-of-the-mill family-oriented biker bar. At a table sat a family who was either chowing down after hunting for the day or got a group discount on matching camo outfits. At the bar, a middle-aged mustachioed gentleman, wearing a polo shirt the same beige color as the label on the two Coors bottles in front of him, was quietly singing along to the bar music: Elvis’ “Suspicious Minds.” It was a moment of sublime beauty.

After convincing the bartender to get me a Budweiser despite not having my ID, I ordered some oysters, along with a cheeseburger as a backup plan.

Here's what happened next:

The verdict: they tasted like heavily breaded calamari. The only sign I was eating sliced bull testicles was a slight metallic aftertaste, though that easily could have just been my brain trying hard on my behalf to identify, for future reference, any possible difference between seafood and bull nuts. I ate about 5-6 of them before focusing on my Plan B cheeseburger.

Turns out I went to Bruce's Bar a week before history: the 1st annual Rocky Mountain Oyster Eating Challenge.

The bartender seemed excited when I asked her about it.

“We’ve had a lot of people ask about it, but only a few have actually signed up so far,” she said. She handed over at least half a dozen flyers, touting how – for $10, contestants each get a drink, a t-shirt, and – of course – all the nuts they can shove down their throats while the Coors Light girls look on. How can you afford NOT to do it?

By now, I’m sure you can guess where the name Severance came from: obviously, from David E. Severance, a local 19th Century farmer.

Of course, the town is about much more than bull gonads (am I the first person to ever write that sentence?). Severance has actually exploded in population during the past decade, from 597 people in 2000, becoming a bedroom community for the nearby cities of Fort Collins and Greeley. Go about six blocks anywhere east of town, and suddenly the scenery of a sleepy farming town gives way to Naperville.

And, yes, there are businesses in town besides Bruce’s. There’s a newish-looking gas station, not to mention a drive-thru coffee stand/egg dispensary.