Dodge City Boot Hill Museum
We got into Dodge City, Kansas fairly late but there was a few hours left until Boot Hill Museum closed so we decided to check it out. Its about as much of a tourist trap as you can expect to find with lots of curio shop trinkets in the gift shops that you can get in other curio shops just about anywhere else and the Front Street mock up is just a facade like an old movie set. That being said I still thought it was a interesting place to see with all the artifacts, guns and things inside. You can get a sarsaparilla and watch a can-can show, unfortunately we were too late for that, see mock gun fights or get your name printed on various wanted posters from an antique printing press. People really into life in the Old West would enjoy the museum parts and kids would like the touristy and show bits.
Talking to some of the old locals in town later there seemed to be a bit of a love hate relationship with the Boot Hill Museum. First they didn’t like it because its fake and not authentic and too touristy and detracts from the real history of Dodge City. I can understand that, many places in New Mexico have done the same thing. They also said that they were sad that at the same time that pretty soon the Museum would be the only place left where people could see our history and the way things were. Apparently theres still a bit of a sore spot that all the graves were moved from Boot Hill Cometary and those old wounds had been reopened as more artifacts and things were discovered and relocated during the course of building a new highway through town that was still being worked on when we were there. I didn’t get the whole story on that. So these residents anyway loved that the museum had worked hard to collect and preserve and display all the artifacts showing how life used to be but at the same time the buildings and setting is artificial.