By Fernada Santos | The New York Times
CAVE CREEK, Ariz. — A baby buffalo stood guard outside Town Hall, snorting at the approach of three mounted police officers from nearby Scottsdale who had towed their horses here on a trailer.
Mr. Thorstenson, back to camera, and other Cave Creek residents looked the part at a town meeting, trying to make the case that Scottsdale is not “the West’s most Western Town,” as it claims.
From the sideline, Larry Wendt, a former sheriff’s deputy whose saloon holds weekly live bull-riding spectacles, took the first shot. “They’re riding English!” he hollered — as in English saddles, which, being hornless, “are no saddle for real cowboys,” he explained.
And so the tone and stage were set for a modern-day Western showdown that would be punctuated not by bullets, but by words on paper and a vote by seven elected Cave Creek officials, three of whom are actually East Coast transplants. At stake was Scottsdale’s motto, “The West’s Most Western Town,” which it has claimed on its official seal for more than 60 years. The people of Cave Creek were determined to prove that their town deserved the title instead.
