Cue the theme from Gunsmoke - We're in Dodge!

Dodge City, Kansas has a wonderful tourist/information center.  You can get tons of great pamphlets, they give out free copies of "Wild West" magazine, which, in case you have never read it is a wealth of information about the old west, and they have very nice people who will tell you all about where to go and what to see and do in their town.

I wanted to hit the historic parts, and they nicely circled them on the 'walking tour of Dodge City' map.

But what was first and foremost on my mind for the tour was the old Dodge city, Boot Hill, gunfight reenactments, and yes, investigating some of the things I had seen on the History Channel.

The Dodge City Museum encompasses all of the above.  You enter the large building that also houses the gift shop (which every historical site always has) and price of admission is $10 for adults.  The "tour' is all self guided, and starts in their little theatre where a short film tells you all about the origins of Dodge as a Fort on the Santa Fe Trail, the railroad, where many hunters came to shoot thousands of buffalo that roamed the plains in that area, which made many people a good living, and then as the center for Texas beef coming north, the outlaws, and some information about it's most famous residents:  The Earp brothers, Doc Holliday, and a few others.  Actually, who really was the most famous resident was the marshal there for a time, Bat Masterson.  He and two of his brothers kept the peace there for some time.

I could go on and on about the old west here, legends of gunfights, stories about Wyatt and his brothers, but let's just cut to the chase:  Wyatt was only DEPUTY Marshall here.  He had to wait to become a full fledged one until he got to Arizona.  He never really got into gunfights here.  And no, James Arness did not live here.  And the real Dodge City looks nothing like the one you saw on Gunsmoke.  Heck, like all things from the old west, reality is MUCH smaller than if was depicted on TV.  And, the real Dodge of old, where the real gunfights did happen, was located where a parking lot is right now, and burnt down some time ago.  The old Dodge city of today was relocated and reconstructed - are you ready - ON A PORTION OF BOOT HILL!  The nasty reality is that they bulldozed a portion of the cemetery to make 'Dodge City' and relocated the bones of the deal people into the town cemetery.  And the rumor and folklore is that all the bones were not relocated, included some of an Earp relative.  And that person is said to haunt Dodge.  More about that later.

What the main street of Dodge City looks like today

What is left of the real Boot Hill, other than the area that is now the town, is interesting.  Seems that people ended up there for various reasons, gunfights, sure, but more likely just being shot because they were doing some idiotic thing, or for being caught out on the plains in the middle of winter and freezing to death.  I am afraid it is a lot less violent than the westerns make it out to be.  This was a booming town, first with the buffalo hunters and then with the cattlemen, and people have money, there was a lot of businesses, and they wanted a safe town.  And they hired a slew of gunmen to keep it that way.  To that end, they saw a lot less killings than history has related.

Boot Hill really is on a hill, a very steep one!

Even the 'good' citizens of town met their maker in a hail of bullets

One of the few people actually killed by Wyatt

Enough Said

Even the saloon gals had friends

Here's a list!

The old jail was very interesting.  TV portrays these cells as being about the size of most people's bedrooms, with a window that someone can slip a gun through, or tie a rope to and pull apart and rescue the prisoner.  Could not be more form the truth.  The two original cells I saw were in this little building that looks, for all intents and purposes to be about the size of a outdoor latrine.  Inside were two cells that were maybe 3 or 3 1/2 feet wide by maybe 5-6 feet long.  You would be hard pressed to get any cot int here.  And i am sure that on several occasions, more than one occupant would be in each cell.  There was a window that might have been a few inches square, but very small, no escape here.  The doors were barred, and there was antoher on the main door.  A small 'lobby' was in the front of the two cells.  I would bet that in the summer, this would be a very nasty place to be.

Bet you wouldn''t want to be in here in 97 degree weather!

There is a really great museum there, filled with stuff about Indians, locals and lawmen.  They have a full sized buffalo that has sound and motion attached, and you can feel what it would be like to stand on the plains as the herd of buffalo rumbled by.  Awesome.  there were some really great weapons, including one that was used by lawmen of the era. 

Brands of some of the cattle ranches in the area

 A life sized buffalo is pretty big!

Indian artifacts

Every museum needs a barbed wire collection

Twice a day they stage a shoot out on the street of Dodge.  Costumed interpreters argue, fight, and shoot each toher

The guy on the left is the Marshall, the right is Slim

When you walk through the buildings, you find a general store, the Long Branch Saloon (which was the real name of the saloon, not just the one Miss Kitty ran,, as well as depictions of the undertaker, the dentist, the bank, the marshal's office, saloons, gambling parlors, a dry good store, and a real house, blacksmith's shop and church from the era that was not destroyed in the fire.

Here is where it gets interesting.  There were a fair amount of people investigating the areas, the gunfight had just ended, and so several people were bellying up to the bar in the Long Branch for a sarsaparilla, and looking over the displays.  I was traveling throughnb the displays and was in front of the dry good store area when the first entity hit me.    We both were surprised.  I because it was a warm (ok, HOT) spring day, and there were probably 8 or so people in that area besides me, he, (and yes, it was a he) because it seemed he did not expect anyone to be there.  It was fleeting. 

Here's where i met my first entity.  Have no idea why he's hanging here.

I continued along the displays.  I got to the end, where the bank was, which was kind of darker in lighting.  There was no one in that area, I was alone, and as i entered the bank, I was greeted by a male entity.  It was almost like it would have greeted any other customer to his bank in a previous time.   Now, i saw a program on the History Cahannel where they stated that dodge was haunted and that they see gunfighters in the street.  I don't know about that, but there are two different spirits in that building in two different  places.

Here's where I met my second entity.  I feel he is connected to the bank in some way, since he welcomed me into it.

I went back to the Long Branch, where I approached the saloon girl and asked her about hauntings.  She called over one of the guys were was in the gunfight, Slim.  The three of us talked of ghosts, that is when I was told that they didn't get all the bones transferred to the cemetery when they were building the new Dodge layout.  I was also told that several of the people who work there have seen things, and that they had tried to get various ghost hunters out to investigate wtihout much success.  I was also told that a little girl was often heard in the house down the street.  So off I go with Slim and the saloon girl to investigate. 

You know, if you are polite and nice to people, they are nice back, hence my ability to go to some closed off areas to see if anything was up.  the answer, no, but we found the resident stray cat that likes to sneak in, comfortably asleep in the middle of a fluffy feather quilt on a gorgeous authentic oak high backed bed.  But no little girl.  And sorry, no pics I took showed any orbs, flashes of anything but my camera flash, or faces.  But I felt two entities, and they acknowledged me.  So it was a good day.  I volunteered to be on a ghost hunting team.

There are more things to see in Dodge, authentic houses, not to mention the great statues, old railroad cars, but I grabbed some food, said Hi to one of my favorite history figures, and needed to get one my way.

Wyatt Earp statue

Ah heck, you can figure this out, it's a statue of a steer

Hubby's favorite outlaw

It was 97 degrees out with a hot overcast sun, and I wondered what the temp would have been it the sun was out in full force!  That hot wind was blowing across from the prairie, and it was common for them to have 40 mile an hour winds or more all the time there.  I was told that Dodge was actually one of the windiest places in the US, skip Chicago.  I was glad I was in shorts and a tea shirt, unlike the saloon girl and slim, in heavy clothes, long sleeves, scarves, etc.  I could only imagine how hot and dusty it would have been back 100 years with the cattle constantly kicking up dirt, and no grass or trees.

But i pointed my truck to the Northeast and continued upon my adventures.