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DODGE CITY |
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DODGE CITY
, 150 miles west of Wichita, is perhaps the most famous of all America's cowtowns. It has certainly been committed to celluloid more times than any other, especially in 1930s Westerns like
My Darling Clementine
and
Dodge City
. However, this wildest of Wild West cities had a heyday of only a decade, from 1875 until 1886. Established in 1872 with the Santa Fe Railroad, which transported the hides of millions of plains buffalo, by 1875 the town of traders, trappers and hunters had to find a new economic base - the buffalo had been exterminated. The era of the great cattle drives was already underway, and Dodge City became a den of iniquity where gambling, drinking and general lawlessness were the norm. Such wickedness led to gunfights galore, and the notorious Boot Hill cemetery (where the villains were buried with their boots on) was kept busy by charismatic lawmen such as Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp.
The Town
Dodge City
today is rather more staid, with its old downtown area enveloped by a hinterland of railroad tracks and giant silos. Outside of the two-week
Dodge City Days and Rodeo
(
), held near the end of July, it is content to...
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