By Jennifer Theurer
Kansas has a starring role in many pioneering trails such as the Oregon Trail, the Santa Fe Trail, and the Lewis & Clark trail, but none are quite as popular as the Gunsmoke Trail.
The Gunsmoke Trail doesn’t follow a path but covers how several Kansas towns played a part in the classic television show of the same name. “Gunsmoke” aired from 1955 to 1975. According to IMDb.com, it was slated to be cancelled due to low ratings in 1967, but then-CBS President William Paley was a big fan so he moved the show from Saturdays to Mondays. The move saved “Gunsmoke,” but “Gilligan’s Island” was scrapped in the process.
Today, reruns of “Gunsmoke” play on several television channels and the show has seen a rise in popularity some 50 years after the last new episode aired. Three years ago, Julie Roller Weeks, director of Abilene Convention & Visitors Bureau, was scrolling through Facebook and came across a “Gunsmoke” fan page that had 150,000 members. This sparked an idea for Weeks and she wondered if the show had ever mentioned Abilene. A quick internet search told her Wild Bill Hickok had been a character on the show, traveling from Abilene to Dodge City to help his friend, the fictional Marshal Matt Dillon.
Convention & Visitors Bureau directors in Kansas are a tight knit group, so Weeks made a call to the Dodge City director and further investigation revealed that Hays and Wichita had been mentioned on the show. Weeks is sure other Kansas towns were talked about and suggested that the trail could easily be expanded to include them if those towns were interested.
The group started the Gunsmoke Trail as a blog highlighting the cowboy-themed attractions in the four cities then expanded to a website and a digital passport. It has taken off since then.
“When the State of Kansas and our partners went to the American Bus Association showcase, it was the number one attraction,” Weeks said. “And the state was asking what are you guys doing? People are asking about this.”
What they were doing was packaging their collective attractions that made it easy for people to visit them when and where they could. Recent television shows have romanticized the American cowboy and between the trail’s website and printed brochure with a map visitors can experience that.
“It’s just a nice, packaged way for people to experience our cowboy story,” she said. “You think about World Cup and international travelers, they all want to experience our cowboy story.”
For Kansas residents, the trail offers a cost-effective way to see different parts of their home state.
“A day trip is affordable. You don’t have to send your family to Disneyland to have a good time,” Weeks said. “You can do it right here in Kansas.”
