Solace in history

When I was a kid, one of my favorite places to go was the library. There seemed to be something almost sacred about the silence. Easily within your grasp — or the librarian's on a ladder — were countless millions of pages of knowledge.

It was a breath-taking thought. Well, as breath-taking as my sugar-addled 6-year-old brain could comprehend.

One place I never sought solace, however, was history. Even more so, local history.

You grow up in a town like Dodge City, where the past still lives right next to the present in such a blatant fashion and eventually the breathtaking becomes the norm.

I'm speaking of the missionary-style city hall on Spurce, looking out across Dodge's downtown. I'm talking about the Santa Fe Depot, one of the finest among those still standing in Kansas. The Santa Fe trail ruts west of town. The Mueller-Schmidt home of stone.

Yet even these are well known enough that they end up in our own tourism guide that the Globe produces annually. And as you grow up and learn the names by heart — Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Chalk Beeson — you begin to lose interest.

History isn't that interesting when you're raised with it.

But there's a lot of untold history in Dodge City. A history that's often taken for granted. Beeson Theater, Dodge's first “finest live theater,” still stands, beneath years of reconstruction. I hope to make this one of my first non-introductory blogs.

I mentioned that my sanctuary of the library had been usurped by the hustle and bustle of my all the more tech-savvy life. But, shortly after I moved back to Dodge City, I discovered a new haven.

Tucked away in the Dodge City Public School's administration building is the Kansas Heritage Center. In manila envelopes,thousands of photos, newspaper articles and clippings document massive chunks of Dodge's history that have been by and large forgotten by the public at large.

The sight of sepia-toned photos framing top-hat bedecked wraiths, dour in front of horse-drawn carriages is fascinating. To see it along a street where there's just enough sstill recognizable all these years later creates a sort of not-at-all-unpleasent mental dissonance.

That's the impetus of this blog. An attempt, however slight, to perhaps catch a glimpse downwards and see if we can't see the faces of those whose shoulders we stand on today.

Time allowing, of course.

— Mark