Boot Hill Cemetery

During the 1870’s, this hill in Dodge City was a harsh burying ground covered with buffalo grass, prickly pear, and soapweed, where drifters, troublemakers, and unknowns were buried from 1872 until 1879. Newspapers were reporting as early as 1879 that some people in Dodge City were dying with their boots on and being buried there. The dead received no ceremonies, the graves had no markers, and wolves often dug up the bodies soon after burial. By 1879, when the city council ordered all bodies removed from the site, about 34 persons had been interred there. In 1916, most of the hill was excavated to make room for a new city swimming pool, and the location was the northwest corner of the original graveyard.

Dodge City, Kansas · United States