DODGE CITY, Kansas: Exploring The Old West's Wickedest Town

all right everyone i am in dodge city kansas the old historic western town i am in the historic downtown actually right now it looks very quiet right now because it's around 8 a.m in the morning on a saturday i'm trying to beat the heat supposed to get above 100 today here in mid-july we were here yesterday afternoon and this downtown was full of people so this is not a dead downtown anyway uh dodge city has a fascinating history the first home was built here in 1871 a year later the first business was built it was a bar in a tent which means that i like this town already meanwhile texas cattle have become in demand longhorns and the cowboys from texas would herd the cattle up here to be sold uh all across kansas but they developed a fever they called it a longhorn cattle fever and so the state of kansas quarantined the majority of the state not allowing them in except for dodge city so these uh cowboys started bringing the texas longhorns to dodge city and overnight it became a boom town they've got a big statue of a longhorn over here a texas longhorn signifying its important place in history they started bringing the cattle up to dodge city as i said the city boomed and this is what happened these cowboys would be on the trail for geez i don't know weeks months at a time bringing these cattle up from texas here in the dodge city and once they got here they're ready to party i mean these most likely young men so almost overnight saloons gambling halls brothels sprung up and the city became as a result of this a hive of villainous activity [Music] dodge city soon became known as the wickedest little city in the usa wyatt earp was a police officer here a law man and so was batmasterson both of those men became legendary and famous for their exploits anyway i am just kind of walking up here gonna take a look at a few things downtown but we were talking about that quarantine the state of kansas finally extended it past dodge city and then everything died all the gun fighters the brothels gambling houses saloons most of them closed down everybody left and dodge city returned to a quiet sleepy little western town real nice mural there on what looks like the tallest building in town most of these buildings were built in the late 1800s early 1900s the whole city is and this part is historical it feels nice this morning it's about 8 20 now it's a little bit of a breeze but it's not gonna last long supposed to hit 102 today yeah here we go first national bank dodge city founded in 1901. now there's some over here i want to show you someone head this way i want to see this statue here modeled after the chief of police in 1933 uh let's see what his name is joe i'm not even going to try to pronounce that s-u-g-h-r-u-e it's right here next to the boot hill distillery i want to buy some liquor here later today pretty good view of downtown from here i'm on a little hill and uh right over here is the uh museum the boot hill museum i will be grabbing the wife and we will be going to it later you can see it right there on the other side of the museum is this the old western town that they've built it's a big tourist attraction here you can see the top of the the old buildings here but it looks like the old west from the late 1800s you go through the museum and then you can go out on the other end into this old western town and they have a gunfight at 6 30 every day so we will be doing that later today so uh yeah you'll be able to see on the other side of those later today and see this old west town it looks really cool so looking forward to that anyway i'm gonna head this way now here's a quick little peek of that old west town you can see it on the other side of the fence here yeah that's where i will be bringing the wife later to watch the gun fight of course that's the museum right there now one of the most beloved long-running television shows in history was set right here in dodge city of course i'm talking about gun smoke if you're a little bit older like me you most likely watch the show i did i love that show anyway it was set right here in dodge city and they named this street gunsmoke street in honor of him so that's a pretty cool thing that they did okay this is the salsa man one of the oddities here in the town this statue was commissioned by dennis hopper the amazing actor one of my favorite all times he was so awesome and easy rider and i particularly loved him in one of my all-time favorite movies water world loved that movie he played the villain in it he was so great but yeah he uh commissioned this had it put here in dodge city his hometown where he was born it's modeled after mobile man it says uh the statue in los angeles or was it okay yeah both of these are known as muffler men are 26 feet tall uh we drove by yesterday i was like i gotta stop by and see that that is so cool all right so still nice and quiet a little bit of a breeze but it is getting hotter quick i'm going to jump in the bronco check out a couple neighborhoods and a couple of the other things here in the city and then like i said i will grab the wife and we'll go from there all right i am on gunsmoke uh getting ready to go out into the city and look around a bit i'll give you an idea of the layout here of course i'm right here this is the main street of dodge city dodge city is a little different than most cities in that the main street is kind of on the side of town the great majority of the town is up this way north so i'm going to head up into here a little bit take a look and uh see what's going on check out a couple of the neighborhoods close by downtown and there's some other things to see here so i'm gonna go over there as well and take a look i'm fascinated by this house look at it it's like mostly well the front of it is underground interesting and there's several like this this one's like that as well i've never seen that before i mean here's one right here too the majority of the homes are underground that would certainly help with utilities wouldn't it even though appearance wise don't know if i care for it they've got some interesting looking homes here i really like them all unique in design none of this cookie cutter suburbia here at least in this part of town yeah i like that this house is for rent if you're thinking about moving to dodge city see i like that big porch love that these are the best kind of houses if they're well kept and maintained it's even better anyway i am uh i'll show you where i'm at kind of in the middle of the city up north it's not a huge city about 27 000 people here and uh you can still see the brick paving it's uh in a lot of the town anyway he still got his christmas lights up in july see my outro away wouldn't allow that we'd be getting the nasty letters if you had our christmas lights still up now the school here anyway there's another blue house one to show you yeah that's beautiful it's a lot bigger than it looks huh all right let's go see some other stuff okay i am uh yeah let's look at the map here i guess you would call that the northeast area of town and there's a country club right here right here i was looking for some of the more expensive homes i was guessing that they would be by a country club and sure enough they got some beautiful big houses here they're all pretty old though these look like uh i don't know maybe 70s style ranch homes some of them got a lot of these in texas yeah that's an interesting looking house it's got a big courtyard there in the middle huge yard that would be nice anyway uh i think i'm done traversing some of the neighborhoods here i'm going to um now at this time go check out some of the landmarks of the city so yeah that's going to come up right now now here's one of the landmarks of the city should be on the national register i'm pretty sure it is it's called the home of stone this is the last original or let me say it this way the oldest original structure still standing in dodge city yeah built in 1881 it is on the national register mueller schmidt house uh i want to say this statue oh okay that's not it i know there's a wide earp statue around here somewhere that's not it i will be going to it sadly it's closed we can't go inside but there it is they've got a trolley here [Applause] a lot of tourists come here to dodge city when we got here yesterday there were uh tour buses all over and our hotel is full now uh just so you know we will be doing a review of this hotel we were doing them for a while then we thought people didn't care for him so he quit but i've since got many comments and messages saying hey start doing the reviews again in particular we will be doing it on this hotel because of its location so yeah be sure and hang around for the hotel review we'll tell you all about it you're looking at the santa fe depot the old train station it's been repurposed into different things now but i'm here to see this statue of white herb how awesome is that we are in dodge city you got to have a statue of wide earth it's cool it does it does not disappoint see what this sign here says wyatt barry stap erp dodge city lawman 1876-1879 erected 2004. yeah that's cool get you a nice good look at it and then i'm gonna take a picture now this statue is of doc holliday have to have one of those too playing cards reaching for his gun that is fantastic this is james arness as marshall matt dillon of that incredible show gunsmoke which took place as you know right here in dodge city that's pretty awesome mindy all right i'm a little bit east of town there's supposed to be a cattle and feedlot overlook here i think i'm being cheated now you can see dodge city there in the distance well not too far just outside of town pretty nice hill up here but this is supposed to be a cattle and feed lot where we can see those particular activities in action there's nothing here boo so there's that but it is a nice view so it's good that you can see that that is a pretty cool sign for a city isn't it dodge city yeah i like that all right so yeah there's the town there heading into the next destination a historical site should be there in a couple minutes i'm at a national historic landmark the santa fe trail remains this is what's left of the 1200 mile long santa fe trail they have kept it preserved you are supposed to be able to see still some remains of the tracks that the wagons and the horses left but for sure it definitely gives you a glimpse of what it must have looked like back then as you're riding your horse or pulling your wagon heading out west they've left the place looking just like it did very windy as i understand it it's windy here all the time and it would actually drive people crazy i could see that yeah i think you can see some of the remains over here i'm going to take a look all kinds of interesting plants out here yeah uh i think some of those tracks are along here i was looking at some pictures on the internet in this recessed area you see in front that's where they would travel so yeah that's cool look even got some cactus out here way up in kansas you can see the broncos there in the distance anyway cool little piece of history i thought it'd be interesting to see i'm going to end this part of the video now and uh head back to the hotel grab the wife and then we are going to go to that museum and that old western town and you're going to see a gunfight and after that we're going to go to one of the local restaurants probably the distillery that's right next to it so stay stay where you are all right we're at the boot hill museum got the wife in tow her name is nicole by the way people have been asking your name is nicole not the wife in tow tickets were 16 each that gets us this museum and the gunfight out in the old town so that'll be cool yeah i'm looking forward to the gunfight right off the bat we see this cool wagon is this a legit real one or is it a replica i'm guessing replica definitely a replica are you sure it looks pretty guessing so of course i didn't say definitely look at all the nails and stuff they look pretty old rusty all right i didn't say it wasn't old and rusty but it just seems so clean well yeah it's loaded up with goods ready to head out west [Music] yeah that's pretty awesome and you can uh you can rest up nails quite easily honey huh you can rest up nails quite easily look at this raising a ruckus whiskey women guns and groceries in that order no yeah i i was reading about the dodge city and the first business here was a bar and it was in a tent some guy just set up a tent and started pouring drinks into hoover's salute oh he's somebody's watering hole in buffalo city uh-oh actually the only one but it's definitely the finest we offer a couple of changes to possibly wish for so long [Laughter] here we go molly white camp one of dodge city's earliest brothel owners now everyone's moving west that's what i did but others around here they don't want a business woman they want to escape it but you can't let them stop progress yeah this is pretty cool a cigar store indian which would be out in the front dodge city born of a barrel of whiskey so many great things come from after drinking whiskey i don't know maybe a bunch of unwanted pregnancies about that too some of the attire of the era it's a little freaky that they have no heads um it's a little freaky that they have no heads yeah i don't know especially the women ones it's just ah yeah i like that wait look look look babe oh wow huh yeah yeah isn't that how they usually look yeah look at this mural that's pretty cool everybody's having a good time in this picture we're gonna head out to the old western the old west town you know this is uh it's gonna be legit it needs to have gambling houses saloons and brothels you better have a brothel or it's not the real deal what do you think can we go any stores i'm sure we can let's go let's go look let's get going pretty cool they're going to shoot you if you step on that grass there's the town had a pump a bunch of people here already waiting for the gunfight [Music] the carrying of firearms strictly prohibited look at this the lawn branch saloon let's go see if this saloon's open wife's already settling down over there let's go see what it's like in here maybe we can have a shot [Music] i wasn't sure if he was supposed to come over here hon yeah are you sure we come out here we can walk the street the plank or the walkway whatever it is all right i hope you're right the saloon's open let's go see it are you going first you're going first all right i'm going in okay cool can have a bartender there that's cool that is cool huh that is cool yeah it's gonna buy a hair slinging drinks well don't we have to whisper whiskey since we're here yeah i'm gonna go in here real quick first this is one of those uh indian cigar statues oh there's all kinds of stuff in here it's actually uh the museum's second part of the museum is in here wow so this is where you get your haircut and a shave looks like apparently yeah hair cutting and shaving well no apparently these are called tonsorial tonsorial polar yeah tonsorial polar and barber barber surgeons they perform teeth extraction leaching bloodletting surgery and enemas as well as barbering well there you go that was good wow those are important guys this is where they did it huh nice yeah they got a lot of guns on display a lot a lot of guns yeah guns that won the west legendary lawmen of dodge city there's a gunfight fixing to happen so this is the jail [Music] female criminal [Music] even got the cool wooden floors see what else we got here oh undertaker supplies wow boot shop got a [Music] crap on your neighbor we've got a photography studio where you get a picture cool huh uh-huh wow look at those cameras yeah compared to the one i have in my hand compared to the one i have in my phone yeah that's true we've got a restaurant an ice cream parlor but it's closed oh and some ice cream and it's closed no ice cream for us the step closes right before this before they start yeah so uh yeah people are getting ready for the show kind of a big crowd here see what's down here real quick got a church over here some smells good smells like somebody's cooking something occidental or occident saloon i don't think it's open and i guess this is probably just a house of the era huh i guess let's go see yeah you want to go see oh you wanna go see it okay yeah we'll see it looks like we can go in [Music] yes oh we can go in yeah so dining room this would be the kitchen huh wait what is the era the late 1800s yeah 1880s okay most likely that's when all the crazy stuff happened here okay i guess this is where they take a bath yeah weekly bath gross public opinion about bathing began to shift in the middle and late 18th century yeah when writers argued that frequent bathing might lead to better health let's not smell so bad right yeah exactly that's kind of cool can't go on the second floor i was quite aware of that that big sign kind of gave it away it sucks i want to see it so sneak up there i'm stuck i'm still stuck on the bathing thing they all shared the same water so the cleanest person bathed first and the dirtiest person they'd last wow the union church i wonder if we can take a look see inside and let's see we can wow i got everything here full-on church cool huh very much so all right the gunfight's getting ready to start so we better find a seat all right we are waiting for the gun fight starts in a couple minutes [Music] slow pan over the frontier city we got some texas cowboys causing a ruckus there's no guns allowed in dodge city all right hold it up right there stop right here ladies of the evening over here at the saloon we got some drunk cowboys fighting whoa all right that was a good one i'm gonna rob the store all right so that was uh that was fun huh watching a good fight it was a lot of fun yeah so we're gonna go to a brewery that we can walk to right over here wait brewery is one of my favorite words to say try to say it ten times 10 times in a row okay say it brewery brewery berry berry burger okay you just sound like you have a mouthful of marbles yeah i guess so it ends up being like brewery i can say it i think you're the only one who can't say it shut up all right dodge city brewing brew pub so this is where we're gonna go now i'm gonna have uh some drinks and dinner what do you think sounds good to me yeah all right i got hoodoo brown i stout and what did you get can can girl can can something yeah can can girl it's a guava sour here it's definitely something that they make right here and it's brewery and we got a pizza coming all right our pizza's here it is sausage pepperoni and onion and peppers so uh we are ready to dig in yeah yeah yeah right that pizza was pretty good what'd you think i really like the pizza a lot yeah that's pretty good i wasn't crazy about the beer i chose so i didn't finish it but the pizza itself was very very good you didn't like your beer huh i liked my beer anyway that's it for this part of the video stay tuned for the review of the hotel coming up right now we stayed at the holiday inn express here in dodge city there's the building we are not particularly crazy about holiday inn express they are wildly inconsistent but this one's been pretty good and the best reason to stay in this one is its location that's boot hill museum right over there and downtown is there lots of dining including this restaurant right here all walking distance so you can park your car here at this holiday inn express and just walk everywhere you need to go it's really handy and uh there's more too i'm gonna go to the other side of the building and show you what's there okay i'm at the other end of the hotel like i said earlier it's about the location right next door is a water park and over here is the zoo so you could bring your family here stay in this hotel park your car and not have to get in it again because everything's here walking distance the museum the old downtown everything so uh now that i've shown you the exterior let's go take a look at the room you ready for the room we're in room 411. we'll get a look at the room we opted for the bigger room yeah so this bigger room has couch king-sized bed little sitting area a desk which is where i'll be working tv little board uh wardrobe yeah you take this because it's yours and i can't get it to move all right i'm talking about the room all right and then uh it's got a little nook for our kitchen and here's the bathroom so there it is looks pretty nice so far what do you think yeah it definitely looks nice i love when we get a bigger room yeah it's got lots of space all right so that's the room the hotel has a pretty good gym got a couple of ellipticals here which we use of course treadmills that kind of thing a bench and they've got the full suite of weights because i do do some weight training so yeah that is good now let's go check out the pool all right this is the pool area as you can see it's an indoor pool which is great in the winter obviously but here in july when it's 100 degrees outside we'd much rather be outside luckily this hotel has this huge water park right next right next door they have a decent breakfast biscuits and gravy not from scratch really good sausage they have these microwaved cheese omelets that i really don't care for they have their famous cinnamon rolls and the orange juice is pretty good they also have oatmeal and cold cereal and they also have their famous pancake machine plus some pastries okay our time in dodge city is over and uh what did you think of the hotel the hotel it was pretty good um i like the gym for the most part they didn't have my favorite elliptical but besides that i did like the gym okay and the room was it like the room is nice and clean and the holiday inn express they always give you like a roomy room you know room spacious room yeah this is a spacious room i like the way i said it better but yes it's a roomy room and um well yeah and it was and it was clean so clean and roomy so you know our recommendation if you come to dodge city this is one of the best places to stay because of the location as i've shown you uh how do you rate the hotel overhaul out of five yeah 3.9 3.9 for you i'm gonna do a little higher 4.3 that's right i think that's because you uh had some breakfast and you liked it right breakfast was okay all right so uh we are heading up into nebraska next be looking for that video it's not cold you

Channel: Joe & Nic's Road Trip

Views: 292,008

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Id: bcQ5oW52J1Q

Length: 38min 34sec (2314 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 26 2022