Dodge City: Cowboy Capital

Fort Dodge was established on the Santa Fe Trail in 1859 to protect wagon trains and serve as a supply base for U.S. troops. Six years later Henry L. Sitler built a sod house near here, and Dodge City was born. With the arrival of the railroad in 1872, increasing numbers of hunters and cowboys came to the town, where they found stores, a blacksmith, a dance hall, and a saloon. Over the next six years, the railroads shipped 1.5 million buffalo hides to buyers in the east. After the buffalo were gone because herds had been overhunted for hides, Texas longhorns driven to Dodge supplied the demand for meat in the eastern U.S. Dodge City had little law enforcement until 1876, when W. B. "Bat" Masterson and Wyatt Earp became lawmen. Their fame helped create the legendary appeal of this "Wild West" town, which continues today.

Dodge City, Kansas · United States