Going to Dodge

February 18, 1937  Dust storm from the north.  We all went to Dodge and also to Corney and Margaret. 

There were two good reasons to go to Dodge City.  First, it was the commercial center for southwest Kansas.  Meade had a five-and-dime store, a grocery store, a hardware store, and a lumberyard; but there were still many things that you could not buy in Meade.  So most farmers in southwest Kansas made occasional trips to Dodge, as they called it.  Since it was 43 miles north of Meade, it was a day trip.  The Santa Fe railroad had reached Dodge City in 1872, and since then it had been the most important city in southwest Kansas.  Fleets of freight wagons had hauled goods from the railroad in Dodge City to southwest Kansas, the Oklahoma Panhandle, and the Texas Panhandled in the 1870s to the 1890s.  (One of those waggoneers, George “HooDoo” Brown founded the town of Meade in 1885.)  Drives of Texas cattle went to the railroad in 1876-1885.  Even though it had changed much from the days of Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Boot Hill, Dodge City was still the place to go shopping for the Siemens. 

The second reason was personal.  Corney and Margaret lived near Dodge City, so this was an opportunity to visit them.  What did they do during their visit?  They surely ate together, maybe just faspa.  They would have done some visiting and caught up on the news, although there cannot have been much news since they were only together three days before.  If it were summer, they would have certainly looked at the garden and the flowers.  And the women might have made discreet inquiries as to how Margaret’s pregnancy was coming along – son Verne would be born in July that year.