Boot Hill Museum at Dodge City
The Boot Hill Museum is dedicated to the preservation of the history of Dodge City and the Old West. No city could match Dodge City as a true American frontier settlement borne of the cattle drives and filled with lawmen and rustlers, gamblers and thieves, legends and tales. Established along the Sante Fe Trail in 1872, Dodge City became a trading center. The arrival of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad in 1872 opened up the cattle trade in Dodge City. Longhorn cattle were driven up from the grazing fields of Texas on the Chisholm Trail and branched off onto the Great Western Cattle Trail. And so began the story of Dodge City.
With thousands of cattle passing through the stockyards each year, Dodge City became a boomtown, with all the usual accompaniments of frontier boomtowns: saloons, gambling halls, gunfighters, and women. Western legends such as Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson became associated with Dodge City. By 1886, the quarantine line that had pushed the cattle trade west, virtually closed the Great Western Cattle Trail and Dodge City’s boom days were over. Dodge City was not forgotten, however. The popular western television series, “Gunsmoke”, with Sheriff Matt Dillon made Dodge City a household name in the 20th century.
Today, the Boot Hill Museum celebrates the early history of Dodge City. An educational and historical museum that the whole family will enjoy, the Boot Hill Museum features reconstructed buildings along Front Street that represent Dodge City of 1876. These and other items were recreated through historical photographs and old newspapers. The exhibits through the Boot Hill Museum showcase hundreds of original artifacts. Over 200 guns are displayed, there is a working print shop, drug store items (circa 1876) and more. The Boot Hill Cemetery, from which the museum gets its name, was one of many burial grounds in the American West so named for paupers and those who perished violently or "died with their boots on".
Special exhibits at the Boot Hill Museum showcase the “People of the Plains” and 1880s-era commercial businesses, including a Bank, Undertaker, Jail, Mueller's Boot Shop, Dr. McCarty's office and Drug Store, Zimmerman's hardware, Dry Goods, and the Print Shop. Top attractions within the museum are the Long Branch Saloon (a popular meeting place for cattlemen), the Saratoga Saloon (that offered gambling), the Victorian-style Hardesty House, and a firearm display in the “Guns That Won the West” exhibit. The Kansas Cowboy Hall of Fame, a project of Boot Hill Museum honors the lives of Kansas cowboys past and present.
The summer season at the Boot Hill Museum features special events, including a Chuckwagon Dinner at the Occident Saloon. The Boot Hill Gunfighters recreate a confrontation between gun-carrying cowboys and the law, on Front Street each night and at high noon each day. The Long Branch Variety Show offers singing, comedy, and Can-Can dancers. This is the longest running theater production in the state of Kansas. Horse-drawn stagecoaches offer tours of downtown Dodge City. Boot Hill Museum is open daily year round with extended hours during the summer season. Special events, including the Chuckwagon Dinner, the Boot Hill Gunfighters, and the Long Branch Variety Show, as well as others, are offered during the summer season only.
Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center
The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center is a museum and educational facility best known for its collection of space artifacts and its educational camps. It began as a planetarium for the 1962 Kansas State Fair. Today, it is the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center and it is located in Hutchinson, Kansas. The facilities include the IMAX Dome Theater, the Justice Planetarium, and Dr. Goddard’s Lab, which demonstrates how rockets work. The center houses the 2nd largest collection of U.S. Space artifacts (2nd to the National Air and Space Museum) and the largest collection of Russian space artifacts outside of Russia. The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.
The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center is well known for its camps, including the Future Astronaut Training Program (FATP), a five-day summer camp for teens. An Elderhostel program, and several day and overnight camp options are available for elementary school students. Adults can participate in the three-day or five-day Adult Astronaut Experience program. The highlight of the Adult Astronaut Experience camps is a shuttle mission in the Falcon simulator.
Other items on display at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center include a collection of tools and vacuum-packed foods used in space. The visit to the center include the IMAX Dome Theater, the largest and most sophisticated film projection system in the world, the state-of-the-art Justice Planetarium, and Dr. Goddard’s Lab, a live science show about the work of the father of modern rocketry, Dr. Robert Goddard. The Lunar Outpost on the premises offers a wide-variety of lunch and snack options.
The Cosmosphere is open daily year round and is closed on Christmas. It may also be closed early for special events.
Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
The world might be a different place had David Dwight (Ike) Eisenhower not been born. The man appointed commander in chief of Allied forces in North Africa in 1942, directed invasions of Sicily and Italy, was appointed supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force and led the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion of Normandy was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas. He was to become the 34th president of the United States. His term in office is remembered for the end of the Korean War, mounting pressure on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, redirecting the defense budget to include nuclear weapons, beginning the space program, enlarging Social Security, and building the interstate highway system.
Dwight (who switched his first and middle names) grew up in the small town of Abilene, Kansas. The small town virtues helped him to excel in both school and athletics. He was appointed to the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 1911. He married Mamie Doud in 1916. In 1918, he commanded 6,000 men at Tank Training Center, near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. As a major, he served as an assistant to General MacArthur in the Philippines (1935-39). After his aforementioned success in WWII's European theater, he accepted surrender of German Army at Rheims (V-E Day) on May 7, 1945. He served as commander of U.S. occupation forces in Europe (1945). In 1952, he was elected President of the United States as a Republican. Eisenhower was the first president to serve a constitutionally limited term (22nd Amendment). His term of office was January 20, 1953 through January 20, 1961. To honor the president, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library is located in his boyhood hometown of Abilene.
At the Dwight D. Eisenhower, Presidential Library is his Boyhood Home. The home is furnished as it was at the time of his mother's death in 1946. The furnishings are original to the home, and the wallpapers in the parlors, dining room, and hallway are identical to the papers in the home in 1946. The home was donated by the Eisenhower sons and was opened to the public in early 1947, originally as a World War II Veterans Memorial. It was given to the Federal Government in 1966 and has been restored to the 1946 period.
The Eisenhower Museum, dedicated on Veterans Day, 1954, houses the artifacts and materials related to Eisenhower’s personal life, military career, and presidency. It contains over 30,000 sq. ft of gallery space, with exhibits showing the fine art objects given to and collected by the Eisenhowers. The stories of his career as military leader in wartime and as President during the Cold War are recounted. The Museum’s five major areas consist of an introductory gallery, changing exhibits gallery, a First Lady's gallery, a military gallery, and a presidential gallery.
The Eisenhower Library houses historical materials and documents for research. In order to maintain a quiet research and study facility, there is no general admittance to the research areas. The Library contains a 165-seat auditorium and exhibition areas. The Place of Meditation is where President Eisenhower, who died in 1969, his wife Mamie (1896-1979), and their first-born son, Doud Dwight (1917-1921) are interred. The Visitors' Center Gift Shop houses an auditorium where a brief film on Eisenhower is shown on a daily schedule. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and museum is open daily year round and is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.