A City within a City Dodge City's Mexican Village Rotary Marker - Dodge City, Kansas - Rotary International Markers on Waymarking.com

This informational placard, placed by the Rotary International, is located at the west side of the old Santa Fe Depot. The marker is available 24 hours a day / 7 days a week. It is located just west of the old Santa Fe Caboose.

Text of the marker:

"A City within a City
Dodge City's Mexican Village

From the beginning of the 20th century until 1955, a small ethnic community grew on the eastern outskirts of Dodge City. Immigrants from Mexico came seeking a better life; most found employment with the railroad. This tiny city within a city was called the "Mexican Village." It stood less than a mile southeast of this sign.

The first Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe train arrived in Dodge City in August 1872. As business increased, the company looked to the south to expand its labor force. At the same time, violent political upheaval in Mexico led to a wave of northward emigration. Many men began working for railroads in the region and soon the Santa Fe actively recruited south of the border.

(picture of students outside school)
Students pose by a teacher's car outside Coronado School, circa 1930. The Village church doubled as a school until this public school was built in 1921.

The first laborers were seasonal, working through the summer and returning to Mexico in the winter. In Dodge City, they lived in cramped, temporary quarters -- tents or idle boxcars. Later, the Mexican men began to stay year-round, and were eventually followed by their families. The railroad agreed to allow tenants to settle on company land, as long as the head of the household was employed by the Santa Fe. Plots were leased at fifty cents a month, an amount that remained unchanged throughout the Village's existence. Gradually, a small community grew around the Santa Fe roundhouse -- the "Mexican Village."

The Mexican Village had no real establishment date, no formal founding or declaration proclaiming it an official town. It had no legal name. It was sometimes " called "La Colonia," "La Yarda," "Little Mexico," or just "The Village." Families lived on railroad property as early as 1903. New villagers came as late as the 1940s. Many residents built their own homes from railroad ties and discarded boxcar sides, or in at least one case, sod. Dirt floors were common, as were outhouses. None of the homes had plumbing; water was available from two community spigots.

Most of their homes are huts built of old cross-ties. But inside! How clean many of them are! How brave their array of pastelboard saints and blessed candles! -- Father John Handley, quoted in the Dodge City Journal, April 29, 1929

Sometimes they have a little front porch and a few flowers in the front yard, and one usually finds a tiny garden at the rear or side with perhaps a milk goat, a few chickens, and a pig, also an outdoor toilet -- all located on one small lot, probably 50 by 100 feet. -- Mabel K. Wright, WPA Writers Project, 1935

Most village men were employed by the Santa Fe. They serviced locomotives at the roundhouse just west of their homes or repaired track and bridges. During the seasonal layoffs, some men and other family members worked in the local sugar beet fields. In addition to jobs, residents shared bonds of culture, language, and religion (overwhelmingly Roman Catholic).

The Village was largely a self-sufficient community. The colony had a grocery store, pool hall, dance hall, school, and church. There was no organized system of government, but ordinary citizens stepped forward as leaders. Residents filled in as impromptu doctors, civil servants, real estate agents, and midwives. A few even supplemented their incomes by making coffins. Necessity forced Villagers to take on many roles.

(picture of "Mexican Village" and Roundhouse)

By the time this aerial photograph of Dodge City's Mexican Village was taken in August 1955, residents had been notified that they must leave the site. The remaining buildings in the Village were in the trees surrounding the large fuel tank. The structure that had been used as Coronado School was immediately left of the two quonset huts near the right center edge of the photo. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway roundhouse -- where many of the Village men worked -- was just west of the Village.

The first school was parochial, held in a frame building financed through the efforts of Father John Handley, then pastor of Sacred Heart Church. The structure, constructed in 1915, also served as the Village church. In 1921, a two-room public school was built. A third room was added in 1926 and three years later students named it Coronado School. Its final upgrade came in 1940 when a drinking fountain and bathroom was installed. The church, Our Lady of Guadalupe, remained in use until the 1950 erection of a new church north of the tracks on Avenue J.

Although the Village lay near Dodge City, the two communities were separated by the rail yard and Chestnut Street (now Wyatt Earp Boulevard) -- along with cultural differences and racial tensions. Originally the home to rowdy young bachelors, the Village gained some of the same notoriety as Dodge in its cattle town days. Most Dodge Citians avoided it and Villagers made few trips to Dodge. When necessary, they walked into town under the busy rail yard through a drainage tunnel. Few residents could afford automobiles.

While the Village was not founded because of racial segregation, its residents were no strangers to racism. Segregation was common in Kansas during the first half of the twentieth century. In Dodge City theaters, Hispanics were allowed only to sit in balconies. Restaurants permitted them to eat only in kitchens or carry out food. It wasn't until 1952 that the Mexican community was allowed to use the city pool.

(picture of Lady of Guadalupe Church)

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, built in 1915 with encouragement from Father John Mark Handly, served the Mexican Village. It was replaced by a new edifice on Avenue J in 1950.

The Village began its decline during World War II when the Santa Fe started the transition from steam to diesel locomotives -- technology that required less maintenance and fewer workers. The company further displaced families by erecting a large fuel tank in the middle of the Village. The population continued to drop as families moved north of the railroad tracks. Finally, in August 1955, the site was condemned. Citing poor living conditions, sanitation, and the need for industrial expansion, the ATSF sent notices to vacate. Some homes were moved north of the tracks near the new church; others were demolished.

For more than five decades, several generations called the Village home. At its peak the community's population reached over 300. Dodge City has since grown to encompass the site where the Village stood, but its saga still remains an important part of local history and heritage.

(map of the ATSF tracks and Village)

Photographs and other images courtesy of the Kansas Heritage Center and the Lola Adams Crum Estate

Plaque or monument: Plaque Placed by?: Dodge City Rotary

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