Can I reload old fashioned paper shells?

[Stepmac]

It's flat out there isn't it.

I used to walk down Front Street in Dodge before they tore it down to build the parking lot for the Front Street Replica. I knew men who had lived in Dodge in the 1870's. They were very old and I was very young, but my dad and his folks knew these people well when they were still spry. They made tapes that turned to mush in their garage. Too bad. These old guys recalled Ed and Bat Masterson, Luke Short and Chalk Beeson, but none of them remembered Doc Holliday or Wyatt Earp. Holliday was only in Dodge for three months and Earp was just a local cop and not well know among the nice folks of town.

You've been to the old Boot Hill Cemetery and museum? It is empty now, its contents being moved to the FS replica down the hill. The old cement cowboy statue that you see there was made by Dr. Oscar H. Simpson, who was a close friend of my grandfather, who was also a pioneer dentist. Doc Simpson was my grandfather's mentor and helped him to get started in practice. Doc Simpson's elder sister, Inez Simpson Chisum was married to Sallie Chisum's brother, Walter Pitzer Chisum. He knew Billy the Kid. Walter and his brother Willi Chisum were married in Dodge in 1887, but at different times. Inez Chisum moved to Troutdale, Oregon in 1919 after Walter died. Her daughter was close to Sallie Chisum. Before Sallie died she gave her collection to Inez's daughter, Ara. Ara showed them to her kids. They were stored away in her attic, forgotten and sold in a yard sale more than a decade after Ara died.

I came along and found the little tinypes. Pretty amazing coinsidence huh? There's more.

I've seen a new picture of Clay Allison. It has just come to light, but I don't have a copy of it. Google him and you'll likely find it. My collection of pictures are of Billy the Kid, his gang and the Chisum family. I have most of those folks.

[Jeff Christie]

I was born in Hays ( as I like to say- Fort Hays). I still have the family farm out in Gove county (north of you) that my great-grandmother homesteaded by herself after her husband died. The deed is from the United States to Jane Parsons and dated 1890. It is all sections, townships, ranges, and prime meridians as the counties did not exist at that time. The original house was a 'soddie' a sod house and from what I have been told very livable in both the heat of the summer and the brutal cold of a western Kansas winter. I understand Gove County is now great pheasant country. I have not hunted it since the early 70's. When I was a kid it was also rattlesnake heaven out there.

[Stepmac]

Originally Posted by Jeff Christie

I was born in Hays ( as I like to say- Fort Hays). I still have the family farm out in Gove county (north of you) that my great-grandmother homesteaded by herself after her husband died. The deed is from the United States to Jane Parsons and dated 1890. It is all sections, townships, ranges, and prime meridians as the counties did not exist at that time. The original house was a 'soddie' a sod house and from what I have been told very livable in both the heat of the summer and the brutal cold of a western Kansas winter. I understand Gove County is now great pheasant country. I have not hunted it since the early 70's. When I was a kid it was also rattlesnake heaven out there.

I visited Fort Hays in the spring of 2010. My grandparents always called it Fort Hays too....and sometimes Hays City. I had never been to the old fort before and I wanted to check it out. Some original buildings there. Custer was stationed there for a while. He camped about a mile away from the post along with his wife and brother.

I have sold all of the property that I inherited around Bucklin. Sorta wish I hadn't because I'd allow it to go back and maybe raise some pheasants. I owned about 200 acres, but not all in one piece. Relatives wanted to buy it, so I sold it to them. They live out there and wanted the land to make a living off of.

Can't find my pics of Fort Hays. Gotta be around here somewhere.