The sun never sets on some dreams of the American Frontier.

Decked out in his jeans and homespun shirt, his $300 pointy-toed boots, and his sweat-stained Stetson, John Truda clomps determinedly down "Laredo's" board sidewalk, nodding cordially to his denim and calico-clad friends. He passes the General Store, the Cattleman's Association office, and the six-room hotel that is still under construction. Checking for wagons and oncoming horsemen, he crosses the dirt street, saunters into the lantern-lit saloon and bellies up to the bar. When he asks for tea instead of whisky, no one snickers. He is, after all, deep in the heart of County Kent, only 18 miles from London.

"Laredo" -- named in honor of the Texas city 5,139 miles to the west -- is no movie set, but an obsessively authentic replica of an Old West town. And Truda, a middle-aged Brit with an accent so thick he is near unintelligible west of Woking, is part of a vast movement that spans continents, cultures, and ideologies; a movement dedicated to the comprehension, preservation, and glorification of the hugely mythical lifestyle that prevailed in the Western United States in the last half of the Nineteenth and first part of the Twentieth Centuries, roughly the period between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War One.

If the presence of a cloned West Texas frontier town in the middle of Britain's verdant countryside seems improbable, try to think of a similar place, called "Lubbock Town", in the chilly German province of Westphalia, not far from Cologne. Or one run by the Munich Cowboy Club, securely nestled along the River Isar near the city's zoo that contains, among the expected Western structures, a museum housing one of Europe's best arrays of Old West artifacts that includes a rare autographed photograph of Buffalo Bill and an arsenal of authentic weapons. The collection is valued at more than a third of a million dollars.

More incredible yet is an Indian village -- complete with white inhabitants clad in buckskin, moccasins, and feather headdresses -- in Oderau, in what used to be East Germany, a facility sponsored by an "Indian Club," which was one of the few organizations in that part of the former Soviet Empire that was not controlled by the Communist Party.

To the surprise of many Texans and New Mexicans, Old West clubs and associations -- the primary sponsors of such facilities -- also are found in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and other parts of the former Soviet Union. There also is strong fascination with the U.S. frontier period in South America, Japan, and Australia. But, by far, the strongest interest seems to be in Germany, where the groups are known collectively as "cowboy clubs," "Indian clubs," or "cowboy and Indian clubs.'

According to Dr. Meredith McClain, director of the Southwest Center for German Studies at Texas Tech University and an expert on Germany's Old West idolizers, there are hundreds of such organizations scattered around Germany. Their total, membership is believed to be above 80,000. Facilities like "Lubbock Town" and the Munich compound -- where club members gather to ride, rope, and practice Old West crafts ranging from tool making to bead working -- are meant as weekend retreats. In addition, for members not close to such operations, there are "pow wows" each summer in at least three parts of the country that draw thousands of devotees.

The reason for this foreign infatuation with the American West is not entirely clear. Some say it results from a desire by Europeans to escape their crowded living conditions, although that hardly applies to South America and Australia. More likely, it is because of the prevalence of Western books and movies, the energetic export of U.S. literature and film that paints an unrealistic picture of an era that existed very briefly.

But it isn't only U.S. books and movies to blame. Literature about the Old West has been popular among Germans since before the turn of the century, largely because of a writer from Saxony named Karl May (pronounced "My").

While in prison for a series of crimes a ranging from theft to impersonating a police officer, May read voraciously about the Llano Estacado, which stretches across West Texas into eastern New Mexico. When he was released in 1874, he began writing about a German frontiersman named Old Shatterhand (who could kill a man with a single blow from his powerful fist) and his blood brother, a Mescalero Apache chieftain named Winnetou (which is pronounced with a "V").

May, who died in 1912, published more than 60 books and is Germany's most popular author to date, outdistancing even Goethe, Hesse, and Mann. His books have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, and his fans have included Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, and Adolph Hitler. Many were made into German-produced movies that starred Lex Barker as Old Shatterhand, Elke Sommer, and a Frenchman named Pierre Brice as Winnetou.

While many Germans view May as an unimpeachable source on the Old West, the feeling is not universal. Critics, like members of the Munich Cowboy Club, claim that May, who never visited the United States much less Texas, was loose with his facts, taking events from the early 1800s and putting them in a setting almost 75 years later, distorting them in the process and romanticizing the West to an unacceptable degree. Rather than May's Old Shatterhand, the Munich club seems to prefer Buffalo Bill as its role model, citing the showman's two visits to the city (1898 and 1913, the year the club was founded) as seminal events in the group's philosophy.

To their credit, the many clubs strive for authenticity in varying degrees. The Oderau Indian group, for example, is headed by a man who has collected more than 2,500 books on American Indians. And Lubbock Town, which is 5,190 miles from Lubbock, Tex., is a sprawling complex that includes precise replicas of an Old West saloon, a blacksmith shop, a sheriff's office, a church, a bank, and a printing shop. The Munich group, as well, is a stickler for authenticity. But none is as demanding as Truda.

A perfectionist, Truda is engrossed not only with perpetuating the Old West, but perpetuating it accurately. When he founded the Laredo Western Club almost 20 years ago he declared its emphasis would be on verisimilitude. Later, when he began planning "Laredo", the determination turned into a near obsession. As a result, in "Laredo", there are no electric lights, gas stoves, automobiles, radios, TVS, computers -- even zippers since clothing must resemble as closely as possible that worn a hundred years ago. So, with the exception of some imported items like boots and hats, Laredo Club members's "gear" (an all-inclusive term used by Truda to refer to everything from shirts to saddles) must be precise.

This fact is impressed upon potential new members even before they are accepted into the group. "You can't just become a 'Westerner,'" Truda said. "You have to go through a three-month trial to make sure you can produce the right gear. If you can't get the gear right, you can't join."

From "gear" it is only a small step to occupational authenticity. In "Laredo", everyone has a job. One member is a storekeeper. Another takes care of livery stable, and still another runs the Cattleman's Association. Only Truda, as the club's founder and president, has no assigned task. "I just roam the streets," he laughs, "overseeing my spread."

Truda's fetish with realism, though, can go only so far. The "Westerners" still have to abide by British law. Because of rigid licensing requirements, they can't serve booze or beer in the saloon. Even worse, from Truda's point of view, they are prohibited from utilizing one of the cowboy's most cherished implements: his pistol.

While Truda would much prefer to use actual handguns manufactured in the U.S. in the late 1800s, he and his club members are forced, because of the UK's unyielding gun laws, to carry only cap guns on their hips when they re-enact time-worn scenes from the American West, like the ubiquitous bank robbery or the gunfight in the OK Corral. "It's a shame," sighs Truda. "The real guns make such a fine show with the flames shooting out the barrel."