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  • Ford County
    • April 5, 1873: Ford County Is Organized
    • Cities
      • A History of Bucklin, Kansas
      • Dodge City
        • The Bull Fight at Dodge
        • Churches in Old Dodge City
        • The Dodge City Cowboy Band
        • Dodge City, Kansas History
        • Dodge City Shootout: The Deaths of Levi Richason and Frank Loving
        • Dodge House Hotel, 1873
        • First Dodge City AAA 150-mile Auto Race, 1916
        • The Harvey House and The Harvey Girls
        • The Hinkle-Heinz House (1881)
        • Living in the Mexican Village, As Seen Through the Eyes of a Small Child
        • The Mexican Village
        • The True Story of Clay Allison and Wyatt Earp
      • The Town of Ford, Kansas
      • Spearville
        • Spearville, Kansas – City of Windmills
    • Communities
      • The Bellefont Community
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        • Colonel Richard Dodge on Blizzards While at Fort Dodge, Kansas
        • Fort Dodge (Ida Ellen Rath)
        • Fort Dodge Provides Reason for Dodge City’s Founding
        • Kansas Soldiers’ Home – 4th of July, 1890
      • Howell
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      • The Story of Windthorst, Kansas
      • Wright, Kansas, Its Past and Present
    • Rural Schools
      • Prairie View District 20
      • West Hopewell District 54
    • Townships
      • Royal Township
      • Wheatland Township
  • Books
    • DODGE CITY, the COWBOY CAPITAL
      • Table of Contents
      • Preface
      • Introduction
      • Chapter I. The Country, Time, and Conditions that Brought About Dodge City
      • Chapter II. Travel on Old Trails
      • Chapter III. Ranching in Early Days
      • Chapter IV. The Greatest Game Country on Earth
      • Chapter V. Indian Life of the Plains
      • Chapter VI. Wild Days with the Soldiers
      • Chapter VII. The Beginnings of Dodge City
      • Chapter VIII. Populating Boot Hill
      • Chapter IX. The Administration of Justice on the Frontier
      • Chapter X. The Passing of the Buffalo
      • Chapter XI. Joking with Powder and Ball
      • Chapter XII. When Conviviality Was the Fashion and the Rule
      • Chapter XIII. Resorts Other than Saloons, and Pastimes Other than Drinking
      • Chapter XIV. Where the Swindler Flourished and Grew Fat
      • Chapter XV. The Cattle Business and the Texas Drive
      • Chapter XVI. Distinguished Sojourners at Fort Dodge and Dodge City
      • Chapter XVII. The Great Decline and Subsequent Revival
      • Appendix
    • Early Ford County
      • Table of Contents
      • Acknowledgement
      • Preface
      • Foreword
      • CHAPTER ONE Peketon County Later Ford
      • CHAPTER TWO Along the Santa Fe Trail
      • CHAPTER THREE Dodge City Town Company
      • CHAPTER FOUR Dodge City and Other Towns
      • CHAPTER FIVE Organization of Ford County
      • CHAPTER SIX Buffalo Gold
      • CHAPTER SEVEN Indian Chief’s Narrow Escape
      • CHAPTER EIGHT Adobe Walls Fight
      • CHAPTER NINE Toll Bridge Gateway to the Southwest
      • CHAPTER TEN The Buffalo Trade
      • CHAPTER ELEVEN Cattle Men and Drives
      • CHAPTER TWELVE Men Who Made the West
      • CHAPTER THIRTEEN Dodge City Represented Ford County
      • CHAPTER FOURTEEN Newspapers in Ford County
      • CHAPTER FIFTEEN Business and Professional Men
      • CHAPTER SIXTEEN Early Day Men and a Diary
      • CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Dodge City a Sporting Town
      • CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Court House His Monument
      • CHAPTER NINETEEN A Good Place to Get a Start
      • CHAPTER TWENTY Herder Wagonmaster Lose Lives
      • CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Along the Sawlog
      • CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Tales of Early Day Youth
      • CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Dodge City Today Yesteryear
    • The Rath Trail
      • Table of Contents
      • Preface
      • Chapter 1: Quite a Start in Life
      • Chapter 2: Indian Alliance
      • Chapter 3: Indian Depredations
      • Chapter 4: An Act of Bravery Saves Two Lives
      • Chapter 5: Among the Comanches
      • Chapter 6: Indian Depredation Case
      • Chapter 7: A Brave Man on the Plains
      • Chapter 8: The Railroad Builds Westward
      • Chapter 9: The Men Who Returned
      • Chapter 10: The Buffalo Trade
      • Chapter 11: Cowboy Capital
      • Chapter 12: Indian Chief’s Peril
      • Chapter 13: Adobe Wall Trading Post
      • Chapter 14: Adobe Walls Fight
      • Chapter 15: Indian Depredation Loss
      • Chapter 16: Lone Tree Massacre
      • Chapter 17: Fort Griffin and the Flats
      • Chapter 18: Where the Rath Trail Led
      • Chapter 19: A Time of Change
      • Chapter 20: Rath City Evacuated
      • Chapter 21: Rath’s Freight Trains
      • Chapter 22: The Bull Fight
      • Chapter 23: End of the Trail
      • Illustrations
  • Collections
    • C. Robert Haywood Collection
      • Black Cowboy Influence on Racial Prejudice: Dodge City and Hodgeman Colony
      • Cowtown Courts
      • The Dodge City War
      • The Jones and Plummer Trail
      • Unplighted Troths: Causes for Divorce in a Frontier Town During the Last Quarter of the Nineteenth Century
  • People
    • Hamilton Butler Bell
    • Ida Ellen Cox [Rath]
    • Dr. Samuel Jay Crumbine
    • Wyatt Earp
      • “Calling the Turn”
      • Wyatt Barry Staap Earp’s Activities in Dodge City, KS
      • “Wyatt Earp Back in Town”
      • Wyatt Earp Deposition
      • Wyatt Earp Family History
      • Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal
    • “Big Nose” Kate Elder
    • Ben Hodges
    • John Henry “Doc” Holliday, D.D.S.
    • George Merritt Hoover
    • John Mueller
    • Frederick Carl Zimmermann
  • Projects
    • Coronado Cross
    • Dodge City Trail of Fame
    • Dust Bowl Oral History Project
      • Fort Dodge
      • Betty Cobb Braddock
      • Lois Flanagan Bryson
      • Lola Adams Crum
      • Clayton Hall
      • Leonard Kreutzer
      • Arthur W. Leonard
      • Floyd Russell Olson
      • Louis Sanchez
      • Irene Thompson
      • Juanita Wells
      • Elmer Wetzel
      • James A. “Jim” Williams
      • Project Credits
    • Ford County Legacy Center
    • Fort Dodge
    • Historic Cemetery Tour
    • Home of Stone Museum – Mueller-Schmidt House
      • Mueller-Schmidt House History
    • Landmark Arts Project
  • About Us
    • The History of The Ford County Historical Society 1931 – 1991
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First Dodge City AAA 150-mile Auto Race, 1916

Russell “Bus” Armstrong, Winner

Hudson Super-Six, 71.86 MPH Average

Over 4,000 attend race

Line-up for the start of the first Dodge City,
Kansas, AAA 150-mile auto race, October 7, 1916.
AAA 150-mile auto race, “Bus” Armstrong finishing first, Dodge City, Kansas, October 7, 1916. Photos courtesy, Roger B. Burnett.

Letter from J.P. McCollum requesting race:

April 6, 1916

American Automobile Association, Att: Mr. Kennerdell.
437 5th Ave.
New York City.

Gentlemen:
As president of the Dodge City Motor Speedway Corp., I am asking you for information relative to A.A.A. sanctioned races. We have a two mile oblong speedway, dirt, which we laid out and graded in 1913 and each year since we have regraded and increased the bank on the curves. On July 4th, 1914, and July 3rd, 1915, we held International Championship Motorcycle Races with the sanction and under the direction of the F.A.M. Both years we broke all dirt track records for practically every distance up to 300 miles. Our 1915 record stands.

We expect to hold our 3rd. annual international race July 4th, this year and there is great enthusiasm for an automobile race of some sort for July or some later date in July or August. We want to learn the rules, the cost of sanction, the other expenses, if any, connected with the official A.A.A. side of promoting and running the various classes of automobile races.

I refer you to Mr. Jno. L. Donovan, chairman of the Competition Committee of the F.A.M. at 811 Ashland Blk. Chicago, for information relative to the safety of the track, the quality of the dirt surface, our ability to handle a crowd, and our financial standing.

I might add that each year we steam roll the track and oil it, making it a nearly dustless surface.

Yours, J.P. McCollum, Dodge City

Santa Fe Trail Garage Hudson advertisement, 1916, Dodge City, Kansas. Courtesy, Roger B. Burnett.

Thanks to Lynn H. Nelson, original author, Old West Kansas.

Sundaes on Sunday

June 15, 2025 - 2 - 4 PM

home of stone museum

112 E Vine St - Dodge City, Kansas

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