Dodge City, Kansas in the context of Fort Dodge (US Army Post)

Wichita (/ˈwɪtʃɪtɔː/ WITCH-ih-taw) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532, and the Wichita metropolitan area had a population of 647,610. It is located in south-central Kansas along the Arkansas River.

Wichita began as a trading post on the Chisholm Trail in the 1860s and was incorporated as a city in 1870. It became a destination for cattle drives traveling north from Texas to Kansas railroads, earning it the nickname "Cowtown". In 1875, Wyatt Earp served as a police officer in Wichita for about one year before going to Dodge City.

Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centered on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television.

The radio series ran from 1952 to 1961. John Dunning wrote that, among radio drama enthusiasts, "Gunsmoke is routinely placed among the best shows of any kind and any time." It ran unsponsored for its first few years, with CBS funding its production.

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American lawman and an assistant marshal to his brother, Virgil Earp. Earp was involved in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which he and other lawmen killed three outlaws. While Earp is usually depicted as the key figure in the shootout, his brother Virgil was both the U.S. Marshal and the Tombstone city marshal and had decided to enforce a city ordinance prohibiting carrying weapons in public and to disarm the Cowboys.

In 1874, Earp arrived in the boomtown of Wichita, Kansas, where his reputed wife opened a brothel. At this brothel, Earp was arrested more than once, as he may have been a pimp. He was appointed to the Wichita police force and developed a good reputation as a lawman but was "not rehired as a police officer" after a physical altercation with a political opponent of his boss. Earp left Wichita, following his brother James to Dodge City, Kansas, where his brother's wife Bessie and Earp's common-law wife Sally operated a brothel. In this city, he became an assistant city marshal. In 1878, he went to Texas to track down an outlaw, Dave Rudabaugh, and met John "Doc" Holliday, whom Wyatt credited with saving his life.