Visiting Boot Hill Museum In Dodge City, Kansas

During our second week in Kansas as part of our 50 state road trip, we found ourselves in Garden City, a city in the southwest corner of the Sunflower state.

One of the premier attractions in the area is Boot Hill Museum which is about an hour to the east in Dodge City. While Dodge City is perhaps best known for the phrase ‘Get the hell out of Dodge’, we were looking forward to getting in to Dodge for this historic museum focusing on life in the Old West.

The experience begins in the Great Western Hotel which greets you when you arrive.

Inside the hotel you’ll find the museum’s gift shop which is also where you buy your tickets. Once you have your tickets, you make your way through a nondescript door to a theater.

The theater plays a 13 minute movie on a loop and it’s worth watching in its entirety. The movie is well-made and provides a lot of history and context about the origins of Dodge City and life in the 1800s.

For example, the early settlers set up Fort Dodge to protect themselves – and people passing through – from attacks by Native Americans. That wasn’t entirely successful, so they set about trying to kill 2 million bison. The Native Americans were highly dependent on bison for food, clothing, etc., so the bison were killed with the intention of simultaneously killing Native Americans. It’s a sad tale of destruction of both people and nature.

After watching the movie, we headed outside which leads to the bulk of what Boot Hill Museum has to offer. There was a large section under construction when we visited which will house nine new exhibits, a new gift shop, reenactments and more. Their busy season is May to September, so it made sense that they’d work on construction during the off-season (we visited in January).

Before heading down the steps, we continued uphill to the Boot Hill Building which once contained the entirety of the Boot Hill Museum. As you’ll come to see, the museum has expanded a lot over the years.

Outside the Boot Hill Building was the Fort Dodge Jail which dated back to the mid 1860s. The jail contained two small cells that would house up to four prisoners in each one.

The Boot Hill Building itself contained an exhibit called ‘People of the Plains’. This was more of a traditional museum experience and contained tons of information. You could return to Boot Hill Museum several times and learn something new each time as there was so much to take in.

One of the most interesting parts of the exhibit was learning about Native American life. There were some great additional features like artwork created using arrow heads.

There were also numerous Native American sayings and words of wisdom. The quote below resonated with us given we travel full-time and move every 5 days or so.

The exhibit leads you outside to Boot Hill Cemetery. The cemetery was named that way as many early residents of Dodge City were buried with their boots on. The gravestones now on the site aren’t original, but there are signs explaining how some of the people who’d been buried in the cemetery passed away, from shootouts to bison hunters freezing to death to criminals shot by early law enforcement.

After checking out the People of the Plains exhibit and cemetery, we headed down the stairs. At the bottom of the hill is a replica of Front Street in Dodge City.

The museum was virtually empty the day we visited due to it being the off-season. On the one hand that was a shame as it meant we missed out on fun activities like shootout reenactments.

On the other hand, it meant we had the place to ourselves. We could therefore walk around the museum at our own pace and were able to stop and chat with a couple of staff members for longer than would’ve been possible if it had been busy.

The first stop on the replica Front Street was the General Store where we got chatting to Mike. He was extremely friendly and gave us some suggestions of other things to do in Kansas.

Next up was the Long Branch Saloon where we got chatting to Chip. It was cold the day we visited (as you can probably tell by the snow in some of the photos), so we were happy to linger a little while inside.

The bar sells both alcohol and soft drinks, including their own Boot Hill Sarsaparilla. Shae and I had heard of Sarsaparilla before but neither of us had a clue as to what it tasted like. We therefore decided to give it a try for $2.50 and it wasn’t too bad – like a cross between root beer and cream soda.

The saloon seems like it’d be a fun place to hang out during the busy season as it looked like they have live music. As Chip explained though, it gets busy as no one wants to be outside in the 105° summer temperatures. Quite the contrast from the day we visited!

After chatting to Chip for a little while longer, we continued exploring Boot Hill Museum. Once in the saloon, you can continue moving through the exhibits indoors rather than braving the cold or heat outside.

There’s a replica dry goods store…

…and you then come to the Tonsorial Parlor that looks like a barbershop. Which it was – to an extent. Not only did they cut hair, but they also performed tooth extractions, bloodletting, enemas, surgery, leeching and more. The stories those chairs could tell…

From the Tonsorial Parlor, you arrive at an exhibit called ‘Guns That Won The West’.

This exhibit contains more than 200 types of historic and rare guns, including some used by lawmen like Bat Masterson.

The exhibit also included a section about lawmen of Dodge City like Bat Masterson and perhaps the most well-known one – Wyatt Earp.

We then wound our way through a replica drug store…

…past another saloon…

…through to a print shop…

…past a replica bank…

…and on to the Post Office.

After a couple more exhibits, including one on prostitution in Dodge City, we found ourselves back outside. This led us to the Kansas Cowboy Hall of Fame.

We imagined this would contain black and white photos of historic cowboys from the late 1800s. It turns out we were off by more than 100 years! It actually contained photos of cowboys inducted into the Hall of Fame this century.

Our final stop at the Boot Hill Museum was the First Union Church.

There was very little religion in the early days of Dodge City. This changed when Rev. Ormond Wright came to town in 1874 and established the church a couple of years later.

Final Thoughts

Shae and I both had a great time at Boot Hill Museum. I’d love to revisit during the summer once the construction is finished and they have reenactments, but it was fun having the place pretty much all to ourselves.

There’s a lot you can learn at Boot Hill Museum about the history of Dodge City, while the replica Front Street enhances the experience with features you wouldn’t normally find at other museums. If you find yourself in southwest Kansas, be sure to pay a visit to this excellent museum.

Address

Boot Hill Museum, 500 W Wyatt Earp Blvd, Dodge City, KS 67801