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20070625
to Dodge City, KS
248 miles

When we started from Altus, it was cloudy and breezy from the SE, thus helping us a little as we headed North. It stayed cool, almost cold at one point, until the sun came out when we entered Kansas. This is D's last state - she's now been in all 50. We held a small ceremony as we crossed the border.

The route we followed today (US-283) follows the "western trail" of 1870's herds driven from Texas to Dodge City.

We did get better mileage today. I ran slower and the wind helped us. I'm still confused as to what the truck is doing with funny mileage.

Microsoft struck again with inaccuracies in "Streets & Trips" taking us a few miles out of the way and down a disastrous brick street. We found our way out and to the RV Park.

Everything around here is "Dodge City", "Boot Hill", "Gunsmoke" (the name of the RV Park), Doc Holliday's, etc., etc., ad nauseum. About 23,000 population, and county seat of Ford County. Greensburg KS, which was almost totally wiped out by a tornado a month ago, is 30 miles east.

We ate around 3pm and then went to the visitors center. We received some ideas for tomorrow.

We drove the town, looking around. We stopped at the local VFW for a beer & chatted with Mark. He lived in Colorado for 30 years & says our plan should lead to seeing nice territory. A small ceremony took place wherein a local Air National Guard couple presented to the VFW a flag flown on a mission over Iraq. We took our wooden nickle souvenirs & left after that.

We picked up bananas and bread, then returned to the little house for the evening.
 

20070626
at Dodge City, KS
0 miles

We breakfasted in the trailer & ran downtown to the Visitors Center.

We paid the fare & took the "Trolley" ride around town. We saw the old Front Street (home of the Long Branch saloon and many others in the 1870's). Then we saw some of the "feed lots" here where cattle are fattened before slaughtering. We were told they have a total capacity of 100,000 cattle. It smelled like 100,000. 

The average steer is fed on corn and other nutrients and rests as it grows from 800# to 1200#.

The beef processing plants then kill the beast & process it into useful items. Every part of the animal is used for something. Nothing is wasted. The largest plant employs 2,800 workers and processes 6,000 bovines a day. There are several plants. It is said that 1,000 trucks bring beeves in every day.

They also rotate Holstein milking cattle here. The milkers don't want to fool with the young stock, so they ship the young ones here. When mature, they're inseminated and sent to the milkers. They are milked until they're too old at which time they come back for processing.

We saw the site of old Fort Dodge, which was here to protect the Santa Fe trail. Four of the original buildings still exist and are in use. The site today is the Kansas State Veterans Home.

Then we returned to the Visitors Center.

Dolores & I walked around a few blocks downtown & bought two tee-shirts.

Then we went to the Boot Hill Museum. This place has a General Store & Hotel, and a not-very-accurate "reconstruction" of Dodge City's Front Street. We wandered through it for a while and found the old-time store within it. The elderly lady there told us how good the Made-In-Kansas chow-chow is, so we bought some. We wandered outside then to witness the noon-time gun-fight which is performed twice a day during the summer.

Two young guys rolled out of the Long Branch and staged a fist-fight which left one lying on the ground. His buddy came and was helping him away while another guy was helping the victor away. The victor decided he hadn't done enough, so he yelled at the loser & friend; then the firing commenced. They flailed away with real guns & black-powder blanks until the victor & buddy were both on the ground. Then the marshall and sheriff rounded the corner, screaming for the cowboys to laid down their guns. They didn't, but started banging away again. The sheriff went down but the marshall put the others down.

The little elderly lady from the store came out with a shotgun & when the last cowboy down showed signs of getting up, she blasted him with the double-barrel and put him down again. There were nine "dead" at the close, many more than ever died in a single fight in Dodge City.

The sheriff asked the audience if anyone had a shovel, and then the actors stood up and started autographing the for-sale photographs that just happened to be there.

It *was* sort of cute.

We then took off in the truck. Six miles east of town is a large cross to comemorate Coronado's crossing of the Arkansas River there in 1541 or so. Then back across town to the west, where ruts of the wagons of the Santa Fe trail can still be seen. Well, you might be able to see them in the winter when the vegetation is mainly gone and you might be able to see them if the light is low, just above the horizon, and behind you. But still, the Santa Fe trail did pass through here and was used until the railroad came.

The railroad enabled the Texas cattlemen to send cows to Dodge City, then to the east for slaughter. They had been closed out of trailing to Topeka and places east of Dodge City because those were being civilized - farms and towns were in the way of the cattle drive. So the cows & cowboys came north. The cowboy-fleecers came from every direction to help them spend their wages.

I'm not going to go into all the stuff about Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Bill Tilghman, and all the other lawmen. I'll just recommend the books, "Why the West was Wild" (Miller & Snell, 1963), and "The Cattle Towns" (Dykstra 1968). The book I bought here and like is "Dodge City; up through a century in story and pictures" (Young, High Plains Publishing, 1972 and reprinted in 2005).

We returned to the trailer and settled in early. It was a good day, mostly cloudy, but it still got warm later in the afternoon (86*F).