Structures of Violence

This episode explores how violence unfolded in Dodge City, Kansas, and other small towns around the Santa Fe Trail during the nineteenth century. The rapid influx of guns, alcohol, and outsiders produced a toxic combination that fueled high homicide rates and gave the West its reputation for lawlessness. However, the mystique of gunslingers and saloon shootouts has distorted our perception of how violent these boomtowns really were. 

Written and narrated by: Isaac Yontz 

Producer and engineer: Kyle Jackson 

Theme Song: Fog Holler (Used with permission)

Additional Musical Elements: Fog Holler, Casey James Holmberg, Kyle Jackson, Kate Bone

What is Wheels Across the West: History and Legacy of the Santa Fe Trail?

"Wheels Across the West: History and Legacy of the Santa Fe Trail" invites listeners on a fun and fact-filled adventure across time and territory to make sense of an oft-overlooked overland trail. Created, written, and narrated by students at the University of Missouri’s Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy, Wheels Across the West covers a wide range of topics that intersect with the past and present of the American West: mules, military forts, missionization, Hollywood Westerns, gun culture, living history reenactors, pioneer women, Black cowboys, and so much more. Transporting listeners from Indigenous pathways, to international wagon caravans, to railroads, highways, and modern-day Main Streets, this series reveals how the infrastructure and cultural landscape of the West has been constructed atop foundations laid long ago.