6. Cheyenne Bottoms
About 13 miles beyond the salt marshes at Quivira’s western border, follow Rte. 281 north through Great Bend to Cheyenne Bottoms, sometimes called the Jewel of the Prairie. Here some 41,000 acres of cattails and marshland serve as a major waystation for migrating shorebirds and waterfowl. During the spring and fall migrations, the honks and cries of thousands of Canada geese, gulls, mallards, pintails, wigeons, cranes, and other birds make for lively crescendos. Because these waters are set in an enormous basin bordered by high bluffs of sandstone, limestone, and clay, visitors entering Cheyenne Bottoms can sometimes hear the cacophonous chorus before laying eyes on the birds themselves.
7. Fort Larned National Historic Site
Continuing on Rte. 56 to Larned, the drive sidles west on Rte. 156 to the Santa Fe Trail Center, where exhibits depict the Kansas of a century ago. Farther along, amidst the elms and box elders that dot the grassland, are nine buildings that once comprised the U.S. Army’s Fort Larned, established in 1859 to garrison troops policing the Santa Fe Trail. The stone quarters here served as shelter for, among others, the then up-and-coming Indian fighter, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer.
8. Dodge City
Dodge City’s checkered reputation has inspired a cluster of highly colorful nicknames, including the Wickedest Little City in America, Buffalo Capital of the World, and Queen of the Cowtowns. The place still evokes images of old-time dance halls and saloons where lawmen Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp tried to keep order. Commerce played a key role as well: in the 1870s, buffalo hides and cattle by the millions passed through the town as drovers pushed herds to Dodge City from as far away as Texas and Montana.
Nine miles west of Dodge City, on the north side of Rte. 50, a vast swath of deep wagon ruts remains as yet another enduring vestige of the great path that once linked east and west, among the few places where such tracks survive. Though the trail survived the Mexican War, the Civil War, and the Plains Indians Wars, its ox-drawn wagons were no match for the iron horse: when the first locomotive steamed into Santa Fe in 1880, the earthen highway became little more than a dusty memory.
