24/7 Biohazard and Crime Scene Cleanup in Dodge City, KS

Dodge City is the county seat of Ford County in southwestern Kansas, set on the Arkansas River near the 100th meridian.

The city was founded in 1872, five miles west of Fort Dodge, and was named after the fort, which honored Union general and railroad builder Grenville Dodge; Dodge City was incorporated in 1875.

Rancher Henry L. Sitler built the first structure on the townsite, a three-room sod house, in 1871, and merchant George M. Hoover opened the town's first business — a whisky bar built of sod and boards — in 1872.

Dodge City began as a buffalo-hide camp and exploded when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway arrived in 1872, becoming the great railhead of the Texas cattle drives.

Known as the 'Queen of the Cowtowns' and the 'Cowboy Capital of the World,' Dodge City shipped over half a million Texas cattle a year from its stockyards at the trade's peak in the early 1880s.

The town's violent early years produced Boot Hill Cemetery, where gunshot victims were buried 'with their boots on' until 1878; the site is now the Boot Hill Museum, with a reconstructed 1876 Front Street and the Long Branch Saloon.

Legendary lawmen Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson both wore badges in Dodge City, and the town's 1883 feud became known as the Dodge City War.

Dodge City is the setting of Gunsmoke, the radio and television Western that ran on TV for 20 seasons (1955–1975) and 635 episodes — Marshal Matt Dillon's beat, and the source of the phrase 'get out of Dodge.'

The Mueller-Schmidt House, built in 1881, is the oldest building in Dodge City still standing on its original site.

Dodge City lies on the route of the Santa Fe Trail, and wagon ruts from the trail can still be seen in the prairie west of town.