We arrived at the Dodge City KOA near downtown this crazy hot summer afternoon to learn that all the sites will be nicely shaded in about fifteen years. It’s a lovely new campground with young shade trees throughout. After getting just a little information about the area and things to do from the campground clerk and the brochure rack, we chilled in the air conditioning in the T@B for a little while before heading into downtown and the visitors center to learn more. Again despite our fears that the Boot Hill Museum may be a bit too kitchy for our tastes, we were assured that it was the best place to learn history so that’s where we headed. We turned down the opportunity to spend an extra $24 each for the Country Style Dinner and Can-Can Show but purchased basic admission tickets. For that we got to tour a pretty impressive collection of artifacts relating to the history of the area beginning with the Plains Indians. We toured Boot Hill itself, once the potter’s field for the community, got some marbles in the Rath & Co. store, fell in love with Sasparilla Soda at Beatty & Kelley’s and finished off our visit with the re-enactment shoot out in Dodge City. Although the whole experience did feel a bit like a 1950’s tourist trap, we enjoyed the chance to learn a little more about historical figures such as Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Masterson brothers, Bat, Ed, and James and get a feel for life in The Queen of the Cowtowns in the late 19th Century when the tracks of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe really did serve to divide the proper north side and the infamous south side of town.
0 Comments