Working on the range was a rugged man's job. Able-bodied, strong young gay men on horseback, living an independent life under the prairie stars, full of swagger and bluster, carrying a gun, dealing with life and death. After several months of labor on the plains, a restless cowboy would get a yearning (get a hankerin'). This Gay cowboy erupted into a rip-snorting, free-spending hell raiser bent on divesting himself of his earning in the quickest and most enjoyable manner possible.

He was celebrating, making up for the long and lonely weeks he and his "pard", (his partner) had just spent on the trail drive from Texas. He was delighted with the notion of no more roundups, roping, or branding. No more would he have to suffer through a thunderstorm which could at any moment start a stampede. No more eating dust as he rode. No more long hours in the saddle as he sweat in the heat of the Great Plains sun. He was free... unemployed, uninhibited, and rich. At least until tomorrow or next week.

Waiting for the Texas Cowboy and his cash, rubbing their hands together in anticipation, was the cowtowns of Kansas, after the end of the Civil War until the mid 1880's. As seen through the eyes of the fun-starved trail herder, the cowtowns offered a circus of pleasure, an oasis in the desert of months of work. There the Gay Cowboy could scratch where he itched, belch without embarrassment, dress in what he felt most comfortable, get drunk when the urge struck, and make fun of pretense and culture.

The best-know Kansas cattle towns were Abilene, Dodge City, and Wichita. These names bring to mind hitching posts, board sidewalks, cowboys and horses, gamblers and cattlemen, blacksmiths and railroaders, merchants, prostitutes, vaqueros, and a hot sun beating down on a dusty street lined with saloons. One town does though stand out, being so well known due to its wild, reckless, and perhaps irresponsible nature and being the last of the infamous cowtowns. As Hitler's troopers stormed into Poland in 1939, advertisements appeared in German newspapers for a new movie from America, "Der Draufganger von Dodge City" (The Daredevil of Dodge City). According to this ad, Dodge was a city of "adventure.... the meeting place of the sons of Buffalo Bill; and the city of robbers and bandits."

This image we have of the Dodge City back then, remains to this day. Unrestrained lawlessness and violence, of gamblers, of gunfights in the streets and "a man for breakfast" every morning. The rowdiest town in Kansas. The toughest town in the West. Meanest place in the country. Wildest town in the world.

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