O. H. Simpson, D.D.S. standing next to statues of two Longhorn heads (Dodge City, Kansas)

Item

Identifier: MS 014- series MS 014-3- item 147

Staff Only

Dates

1870-1900

Extent

From the Class: 10 Cubic Feet

Additional Description

General

Front: Our trails have become your highways seven million long horns were marketed from Dodge City during the 70's and 80's lest we forget. Modeled by O. H. Simpson, D.D.S.

Back: Origin of Boot Hill, Dodge City, Kansas, During the golden gun age of the West, in 1872, Boot Hill, the coffinless grave yard, was started, when two gun toters, who were camping on the little hill, engaged in a gun fight. One was killed and the other drove away. as there was no undertaker in this young town, the unfortunate plainsman was allowed to lay where he fell the greater part of the day. When two laboring men returned home their wives told them of the tragedy. So in the shades of night they went with their shovels and dug a shallow grave by the side of the unfortunate victim and he was buried without prayer, ceremony, song, or the removal of boots. In a few weeks another knight of the border fell in a gun fight over the favor of some bewitching dance hall maiden, and he, too, was planted in this embryonic grave yard, with his boots removed and placed under his head as a pillow. Thus this historical tract was located, and named by accident. In the next six years, or by 1878, the graves had increased in number to 43-five of which were filled by women. Only the friendless and the notorious dead were interred in this unusual cemetery. The local people buried their dead at Fort Dodge.