Get the Heck Into Dodge!

This lineup of wild cowboys greets you as you are approaching Dodge City, Kansas.  It was once known as the "Wickedest Little City in America"  or "Beautiful Bibulous Babylon of the Frontier"!   Since we go to Dodge every Thursday to teach an Institute class, we decided to take in some of the sights.

This very tired, downtrodden looking Indian is just off a side road by the wild cowboys cutout.

This wild and wooly town had many famous lawmen such as Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the Masterson brothers.  Here is Wyatt in the main part of town and here you see Elder Riggs ready for a card game with him.

When the railroad was established here in Dodge, they began the long cattle drives from Texas.  The cowboys discovered that sometimes a long horn steer would establish himself as the leader of the herd.  When that happened, drovers often kept the steer for use on later cattle drives.  The monument here is "El Capitan"  a tribute to those longhorn cattle leaders.  I wouldn't want to mess with those horns!

These two are part of the Dodge City Trail of Fame Medallions honoring actors who played key roles in movies about Dodge City. Henry Fonda is honored for playing starred as Wyatt Earp in a 1946 movie.

James Arness played Marshall Matt Dillon in 617 episodes of Gunsmoke over a 20 year period.  

We haven't been  in to tour the Boot Hill Museum and the rebuilt fake Front Street.  The original Front Street, along the railroad track burned down a couple of times so they rebuilt it with brick buildings and just made this one for tourists.

As the cattle drives ended and the town became more civilized, they built some lovely buildings like this Andrew Carnegie Library which has now become home to the Dodge City Arts Council.

This is Dodge City Community College or DC3 as they call it for shorthand.  

This sculpture stands on the campus.  I think it is a fitting tribute to those plainswomen who weathered the constant wind and loneliness to help settle the 'west' as it was known then.

Outside of Dodge you come to this Historical Marker telling about the Santa Fe Trail which became a great commercial route between Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico.  

You can see the actual wagon ruts still there from thousands of wagons that traveled this trail and went west from Dodge City along the north bank of the Arkansas River into Colorado.

I have more pictures to post but haven't taken them off my camera yet.  So this is probably enough  for one post.  This country is very interesting and we are enjoying getting to know the culture of the 'Old West'.  Funny, but we thought we lived in the West!