Dodge City was developed when the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad put a rail head near Fort Dodge along the Arkansas River.
From 1872 to 1874 Dodge City became a boom town shipping buffalo hides and bones eastward but by 1874 over 3 million buffalo had been killed near Dodge City alone and this extermination of the herds ended the first boom.
Longhorns carried a disease that was fatal to other livestock and the resulting quarantine moved the trail drives further and further westward and they began to end at Dodge City. This created Dodge City's next boom.
From 1876 the quarantine against longhorns and the disease that they carried continued to extend westward and by 1885 had extended to Dodge City and closed it to the herds. This ended Dodge City's cattle boom.
