Dodge City fairgrounds and cemetary locations

[kevinkirk]

Hello all,
I had posted that my great grandfather came there do Dodge in about 1979 with his brother. My grandfather was City Engineer for prob 40 years or more so we have a lot of stories etc. My dad was raised there born in 1930 so here is some treasure hunting spots for you from his recollection. Feel freee to email me if you want to know more as I get it.
kevinkirk51@gmail.com
Yes I know where the fair grounds were. They were located east of the grandstand about 1/4 mile and then south between there and the river. There were a noumber of buildings where they had all kind of exhibits. They also used the lower floor of the grandstand as I remember. There was a race track and rodeo grounds in front of the grandstand, and they used to have a town baseball team that to played baseball there. I think that they were called the "Cowboys" but I am not sure about this. I went with my dad sometimes to watch the game. I was even around when they were building the grandstand. It was a WPA project and most of the work was done by hand. They had the concrete mixer set up down in the lower floor of the grandstand and would haul the concrete up ramps to pour in the upper part of the structure. What a job, but it did make work for those who had no jobs. My dad was in charge of all the WPA projects in town. They built the bandshell and the rock walls in the park and some bridges in the park.
The original cemetery was east of Avenue "B" along the east side of the alley that runs behind the alley between Avenue "B" and Avenue "C" and north of Division Street. The fence for the cemetery was on the east side of that alley, and the town people wouldn't let the bodies that they dug up at Boot Hill be buried in the cemetery and so they buried them along the west side of the cemetery fence and I think that my dad said that there were about 13 graves along there. Then when they moved the cemetery to Maple Grove which is the one west of Dodge, they evidently forgot to move the Boot Hill bunch and they dug through those graves when they built the sewer in the alley later on. The Boot Hill bodies were moved, at least as many as they could find when the city built the Third Ward School, where my dad went to school. He said that every once in a while a small bone would show up on the play ground while he was in school there. The third ward school was approximately where the brick building is between Fourth and Fifth and south of Spruce Street. It was originally built to house the city offices and the fire station, but I am not sure what they use it for now. Boot Hill originally was a bluff that went south clear to what is now U.S. 50 going west and used to be called Chestnut Street. They excavated that whole area in there to build a city auditorium and decided not to and so the Old Dodge deal took it over and developed it.

[Detector]

They were located east of the grandstand about 1/4 mile and then south between there and the river.

By grandstand you mean the old race track grandstand in the park?

[kevinkirk]

My great grand father and brother came there in 1879....sorry. Grand dad born in 1888. Father born in 1930. Make more sense?
kevin

[kevinkirk]

Those were the old grandstands that even I remember up until about 65. My grandfather lived on the little farm on Post Ave. Just west of there I believe and next to a horse farm with a little track? He had a cement pond in the yard for irrigation and swimming. Its still there I think. South side of Post a story and a half frame house etc.

I remember going down there but not sure how we got there but they were west of the park. And we used to go to some old ice house too down there.
kevin

[Detector]

We used to go to Miller Ice House just north of the old city pool, is that the same ice house?

Is there anything now located where the old fairgrounds were? I'm still not clear on where you say it was. Are you talking about the grandstand for the old race track on the west edge of Wright Park?

[lBugsy]

I remember the old fair grounds from the 50's with two long white buildings.
these buildings high cupulas (?) on the roof in the center of the buildings.
Those buildings were located about where the zoo entrance in now. Later the buildings were moved to private land just south of Beeson and west of 14th....just behind All For Fun.
Miller's Ice house building is still down just north of where the old swimming pool used to be. the first city pool was where Montana Mikes is sitting. It was built into the bluff against the north side. Later Triplett grocery sat there.

[jeezeweeze]

Detector

That avatar is soooooooooooo cute

[K C Muffin]

My mom and dad have told us stories about a house (their first) on W. Chestnut. They moved from there before Wyatt Earp was built and became Highway 50, and the house has since been destroyed. We have some pictures - I bet they're in the basement of my sister's house there in Dodge. She has most of the history stuff for safekeeping. Miller Ice has been there for eons! What did they ever do with the land that was reclaimed from the old Wright Park Swimming Pool? Did they just fill it in or did they take out the concrete from the pool?

[Zeb]

Cement was removed and there was just a big ditch there. The local Ambucs built a free BMX race track on that spot about 10 years ago that lasted a few years and never really took off. Big ditch again now.

[Detector]

I remember the pool very well. It had high board, a medium board and a spring board. We used to jump from the high board down to the medium board and then into the water. It had a huge slipper slide in the shallow end that people would hold their finger over the water spout at the top that kept the slide wet and stop the water/lubrication. You could hear the people scream as their skin was being burned off down a dry slide.

I remember Mrs Clanton that ran the consession stand and her sons that bullied the swimmers.

Free day after they just filled the pool

Ah the good ole days