With the discovery of oil in the 1920s, some citizens quickly became rich, but the oil barons generously allowed the rest of the populace to share in their prosperity. For example, the Creek Indian Thomas Gilcrease handed over the Gilcrease Museum to the city of Tulsa in 1955. This holds a collection of high quality Western Art with works by major artists such as Charles M. Russell and Frederick Remington. The oil baron Frank Phillips was also interested in the Wild West and collected exotic animals and every genre of Western Art at his ranch named “Woolaroc” (short for woods, lakes and rocks) which he had built south of Bartlesville in 1925. The museum, which was set up in the 1940s, is famous for the world’s largest collection of Colts (guns). Phillips’ brother, Waite, on the other hand, was more interested in the art of many different regions and eras; it can still be admired today in the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa.


Old Cowtown in Wichita also thrives on the memories of the good old days. Today the largest town in Kansas with over 350,000 inhabitants, Wichita was founded in 1871 as a typically Western town. These origins are commemorated in this open-air museum with a combination of original and replica buildings. The program for the evening includes a chuck wagon supper, with typical cowboy specialties such as beef brisket, cowboy beans, baked potatoes and cornbread, followed by a performance by the Diamond W Wranglers. This cowboy band plays Western Music, a type of cowboy folk music which has its roots in the 19th century.


US Marshall Matt Dillon and his deputy Festus Haggen rigorously imposed law and order in the legendary Dodge City between 1955 and 1975. They have been immortalised as the heroes of “Gunsmoke”, the longest-running Western series on television. Between 1967 and 1997, 228 episodes were shown in Europe and 635 in the USA (plus fi ve feature-length fi lms). “Gunsmoke” and the 1939 Western “Dodge City” indelibly stamped the small town of 25,000 inhabitants, which was established in 1871 in the South West of Kansas, as a Western town. The Colts still smoke during the Dodge City Days at the end of July and in the Boot Hill Museum. Today, Dodge City is mainly a centre for beef processing.


The heyday of the cattle trails, when cow punchers drove their herds of placid longhorns northwards towards the railroad, lasted just three decades – yet that was enough to give rise to the myth of the cowboy.


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