Boot Hill Cemetary

The following is from my Father Fred Kirkpatrick Jr born in Dodge City Kansas in 1930...

Yep, the original Boot Hill is where the City Hall was at Spruce and Fourth Street. The third ward school was built there and they moved the bodies they could find to q plqce along the west fence of the city cemetery, which was between Avenue B and C about 3-4 blocks north of Military Avenue. My dad went to school at that school and they used to find bones on the play ground, like finger bones, etc.
The reason they buried the outlaw bodies outside the cemetery fence is the people in town did not want them buried in the cemetery. When the old cemetery was moved to Maple Hill Cemetery, they evidently could not or purposely did not move the bodies of the outlaws. The area where they were buried ended up being in an alley after the area was platted, and when the sewer was installed they dug through many of the graves.

J.M. Kirkpatrick Dodge City Attorney and Abstrator

My great grandfather J.M. Kirkpatrick moved to Dodge City sometime around 1878 . His brother had proceeded him and owned the furniture store and mortuary there. J.M. became a prominent attorney and was well respected even serving as County Attorney for a time. 

He was the abstractor for all of the sales of property in the area and was said to be able to recall by memory all the transactions that took place in town over the many years he was in business. 

He and his brother Edward were there during the Dodge City Wars and told of knowing Wyatt Earp and the other gunfighters well. Their recollections were that those men were of the most vile sorts and they ran the gambling an prostitution in town also. J.M. was supposedly a Phoenix Lodge member and Wyatt Earp was said to play cards with them at the Lodge as  member also. 

He bought the abstract business from a man named Swineheart who moved to Creede Colorado and we met his great grandson and became friends before we had found that information out. Funny how that came about.