We have decided to spend a full day in Dodge City since there is so much history and places to visit. We began our day at the casino. I went in with 30 dollars. I was down to my last 1.25 when I hit for 50 dollars. We walked out with the 30 dollars I started with plus twenty for lunch. We then pedaled over to the original Dodge City and Boot Hill(the cemetery and highest point in Dodge). During the first year of settlement, there were twenty-five men killed by gunshot and more than double that number wounded. All those killed died with their boots on and were buried on Boot Hill, but few of the number in coffins, on account of the high price of lumber caused by the high freight rates. Boot Hill is the highest and about the most prominent hill in Dodge City, and is near the center of the town. It derived its name from the fact that it was the burying ground, in the early days, of those who died with their boots on. There were about thirty persons buried there, all with their boots on and without coffins.
During the early settlement, there was initially no law enforcement and Dodge City quickly acquired its infamous stamp of lawlessness and gun slinging. As the many buffalo hunters, railroad workers, drifters and soldiers streamed into the town after long excursions on the prairie, they quickly found the saloons and the inevitable fights ensued. With the gunfighters dying with their boots on, Dodge City was in need of a sheriff. Two famous sheriffs from the 1870's and 1880's were Wyatt Earp, "Bat" Masterson and "Doc" Holiday. Pictured is the largest grain storage elevator in the USA. We heard today that 9,000 head of cattle are butchered everyday here in Ford County, Dodge City.
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