Show wild cow towns hold spotlight of 02 Irron frontier tier one of the mosi mos io romantic mantic roles in kansas history was played by the texas kansas cattle trails and the wild frontier towns which became shipping points for the herds it was joseph G mccoy who first decided to do something about a market for or texas cattle there were millions of the cattle and they were more valuable than the buffalo which roamed the kansas prairies at first kansas towns interested in texas cattle at least most of them but abilene was although it was only a swall small dead place consisting of about a dozen log huts As soon as mccoy started building his depot at abilene the village awakened and teemed with activity by 1870 there were 4 hotels 10 boarding houses 9 or 10 saloons and other business places one of the first buildings ol of course was the jail sidewalks were of wood and soon trembled and clattered as boot heels clomped on them kansas cow towns held the spotlight ot of the frontier there were ellsworth newton wichita larger and noisier than most and finally dodge city toughest of them all for 10 years dodge city was th the e wickedest wick edest town in the country but it fought hard to gain that tiong |