Santa Fe Trail Tracks
Dodge City, Kansas
We were told by a retired teacher working at the Kansas Teachers Hall of Fame that Dodge City is the windiest city in America. In fact, wind gusts years ago toppled Dodge City's Cowboy Muffler Man, and in 2016 they blew over the big sign that would draw visitors off of US 50 to the parking lot of the Santa Fe Trail Tracks.
Dodge City was upset by this, but the wind may have done everyone a favor. How many people have pulled off because of the big sign, hiked the quarter-mile path out to the observation point, to see -- nothing?
For 60 years in the 19th century, wagons traveled west, often four abreast, across this land. The Santa Fe Trail was a superhighway of its time, but that time was 150 years ago, and the tracks of the pioneer wagons have been filled in by erosion, vegetation, and prairie dust. Various signs along the path offer helpful tips for track-spotting, such as "They are easiest to see when the sun is low." But this is more of an in-your-mind attraction than we'd hoped it would be.