A Wild West experience

Dodge City has plenty to see and do, and a rich historical background

We left the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve and headed east over the gorgeous La Veta pass to the town of Walsenburg. This small town at the edge of the Sangre De Cristo mountain range was the home to Robert Ford. He is the person apparently responsible for shooting Jessie James.

We travelled on and two days later wound up in Dodge City, Kansas. The area was first opened as Fort Dodge in 1865 to protect the settlers coming west. The town was later founded on the Santa Fe Trail in 1872. With the coming of the railroad in the same year, the town served as the shipping centre for the west.

Between 1872 and 1874, 850,000 buffalo hides were shipped to the east for tanning. Then cattle shipping took over and between 1875 and 1876, a record five million cattle were driven from Texas to Dodge City and shipped out. The rails stopped here and settlers continued on by wagon train over the Santa Fe Trail.

A thriving centre

The city has continued to thrive as a cattle shipping and tourism centre. We toured the famous Boot Hill Cemetery and museum. This museum displays many of the original guns used by the notorious gangsters and lawmen who tamed them. A replica town has been built on the original Boot Hill site. Regular skits and gunfights show spectators how the west really was and how it was tamed. Legendary lawmen such as Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, Bat Masterson and others dedicated their lives to making the streets of Dodge a safer place to live. This museum and show are a must-see.

The visitors centre is a wealth of information on what to see and do while in Dodge. A man named Fred Harvey brought great service, good food and a measure of cultural refinement to the west through his chain of hotels and restaurants. Today, the historic and grand Santa Fe Railroad building has been restored and is used as a train station, the Depot Theatre Company and Santa Fe Depot.

We were treated to a tour of this building where we saw the painstaking restoration that has been done to bring the building to its original condition. Mr. Harvey had his hotel and restaurants here. He brought in young ladies of refinement and culture to serve the dinner guests. After the shipping of cattle slowed, the city became a peaceful place to live and raise a family. Many of the streets are paved with the original brick that was laid in 1872. To learn more about Dodge City go to the website.