The History of Boot Hill Museum

Boot Hill Museum, Inc., a private non-profit, was founded in 1947 by the Dodge City Jaycees. Initially housed in the 3,000 square foot Boot Hill Building, it featured cultural and natural history objects. The site expanded significantly in the following decades, adding structures like the 1865 Fort Dodge jail, a train engine, and the Historic Front Street replica, which began construction in 1958.

Key renovations and additions to the museum complex include becoming ADA compliant and enhancing the Santa Fe Trail Rut Site in 1995. Between 2003 and 2004, the original 1947 Museum Building was completely renovated to become the "People of the Plains" exhibit. A Kansas Cowboy Hall of Fame exhibit was constructed in 2006. In 2009, an old Catholic Church, which was moved to the site in 2004, completed its renovation as an exhibit. More recent updates in 2020 included the construction of a new building housing a renovated Giftshop, new interactive exhibits on "People of the Plains" and early Dodge City history, and the Mariah Gallery. Additionally, the Great Western Hotel was renovated in 2020 to serve as the new stage for the Long Branch Variety Show.

The museum's collection of over 60,000 objects, photographs, and documents focuses mainly on Dodge City's history from the 1870s to the 1920s. A significant portion of this collection was acquired in 1964 from the former Beeson Museum, which was started by Chalkley Beeson in the 1870s.

History of Our Collection

The collection at Boot Hill Museum includes more than 60,000 objects, photographs, and documents. Most of our collection is from Dodge City’s early days—the 1870s through the 1920s—and actually belonged to original residents of Dodge City.

Many of the items were obtained from the former Beeson Museum when it closed its doors in 1964. Chalkley Beeson started the collection in the 1870s. In 1932 his son, Merritt Beeson, along with his wife, Elizabeth, officially opened the Beeson Museum. It was originally located in the basement of their home on the southwest corner of Beeson Road and Sunnyside Avenue. Later, the “Corral” as it was called expanded and moved east to a building on S. Second Avenue where the Lewis Toyota lot is today.

The Beeson Museum was a repository for scholars studying the history of the area, and it was a popular destination for tourists. Numerous letters to and from the Beeson Family in the Boot Hill Museum archives attest to the fact that Merritt was a “go to” source for early Dodge City history.

After Merritt died on January 28, 1956, his widow managed the museum until it closed in 1964. Boot Hill Museum acquired much of its collection, which is now housed in the “Beeson Gallery” and elsewhere throughout the complex. Both of the buildings, which housed the old Beeson Museum are now gone, having been demolished within the last 20 years.