Ford County Kansas Essay Research Paper FORD

Ford County Kansas Essay, Research Paper

FORD COUNTY

by Brandon Noll

Ford County was named in honor of Colonel James H. Ford, of the

Second Colorado Calvary, Commander at Fort Dodge, once a Military

Reservation of about 12,000 acres. It was the most important military

outpost on the Santa Fe Trail from about 1858 to 1882. Land was

homesteaded by settlers and some land was purchased, coming from two

sources, the Santa Fe Land Grant and the Osage Treaty Lands. Dodge City,

was declared the county seat and was a famous frontier town and shipping

center.

Mention ‘Dodge City’ to anyone above the age of five and the “wild

west” will come alive for them. Of all the cattle and railroad (trailhead)

towns, Dodge City has been the most notorious and romanticized of the lot.

Dodge City was founded in 1872. It quickly began to rise to a major trade

center on the Santa Fe Trail. By September of 1872 the shiny steel rails of

the brand new Atchison, Topeaka, and Santa Fe Railroad stretched into

view. And Dodge City was waiting and began to grow at a record rate. But

in those early years Dodge City also obtained its infamous stamp of

lawlessness and gunslinging. There was no local law enforcement and

military had no jurisdiction over the town, so lawlessness reigned. Buffalo

hunters, railroad workers, drifters, and soldiers scrapped and fought, leading

to the shootings where men died with their boots on. And that created a

hasty need for a local burial place, and still a famous tourist attraction- Boot

Hill Cemetery. Dodge City’s reputation for rowdiness was universal and it

was boasted that 24 men were killed in single year, which was a lot for back

then. By 1876 the buffalo were gone and longhorn cattle from Texas drove

the dollars into town. During the next ten years, over five million head were

driven up the western branch of the Chisholm and western Trails to Dodge

City. Law and order came riding into town with such respectable peace

officers as Bat Masterson, Bill Tilghman, Doc Holliday, and Charlie Bassett.

Out of these personalities evolved the famous fictional character of Marshall

Matt Dillion.

Too soon, however, the ultimate fate that swallowed up all the cattle

towns: in 1885 the state legislature passed a new quarantine law that closed

all of Kansas to the tick-infested cattle that were being driven up from

Texas. By the end of that year the trails were blocked by lines of barbed-