The most famous cattle town of the trail-driving era, Dodge City, Kansas, holds a special allure for western historians and enthusiasts alike. Wm. B. Shillingberg now goes beyond the violence for which the town became notorious, more fully documenting its early history by uncovering the economic, political, and social forces that shaped Dodge.

The author cuts through legend and myth to depict a Dodge City that few people really know. He takes readers back to the southwestern Kansas frontier and traces a town s evolution from a military site for protecting Santa Fe commerce, to a wild and...