SADDLE UP FOR DODGE CITY - A GLIMPSE INTO THE OLD WEST

If you and your family enjoy history, especially that of the old American West, and you’re looking for a likely spot to visit during a road trip, look no further. Dodge City, Kans., meets your criteria, and it’s not even that far away.

At a distance of 210 miles from Oklahoma City, Dodge City is typically only about a four-hour drive from most Ideal Homes and Neighborhoods.

Once A Wild Frontier Town Located in southwest Kansas, Dodge City is best known for its history as a wild frontier town in the 1800s. During that period, such famous-to-this-day individuals as Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp served as deputies there. Of course, the long-running television show, Gunsmoke, was set in the town as well. Both the actual history of this one-time frontier cow-town and its ties to the well-known and much-revered iconic television show are celebrated along the Dodge CityTrail of Fame. A walking tour of the Old Dodge City National Historic District, the trail is marked with statues and bronze sidewalk medallions that commemorate both the famous and infamous denizens of the once rough and tumble community, as well as some of the actors who’ve portrayed them. Several celebrities have even signed and left handprints in the concrete next to their medallions. Maps for this free tour are available at the trail’s information center. With the mission to preserve and interpret the Old West, the Boot Hill Museum is located on the original site of Boot Hill Cemetery. It has a recreated Old West street, gunfight reenactments and historic buildings, like the Fort Dodge jail. The remnants of the tracks left by the prairie schooner wheels of pioneers heading west in hopes of finding a new and better life can still be seen at the Santa Fe Trail Tracks. Listed on the National Register of Historic Sites, these rut formations are located off West Highway 50, just west of town. At the site, visitors can walk a paved path out into the prairie, and information boards recount the history of the place and the people who traveled through it along the way. More Modern Attractions Although small, the Wright Park Zoo in Dodge City offers free admission and features animals from around the world and a walk-through aviary. Dedicated on Sept. 11, 2002, the Liberty Garden is a memorial to the tragedies that occurred exactly one year earlier during terrorist attacks on the U.S. Created as a way to honor individuals who were touched by 9-11, it is designed as a place of remembrance and solitude. The garden features: two 110-inch replicas of the twin towers, as well as a 1,200 pound piece of steel recovered from Ground Zero at the World Trade Center;  a piece of Pennsylvania sandstone from the hemlock grove next to the crash site of United Airline Flight 93 and a piece of limestone that was once a part of the façade of the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. For a look at additional events and attractions offered in Dodge City, Kansas, click HERE.