Meade County State Park and Dalton Gang Hideout

The Dalton Gang were among the most infamous outlaws of the 1890s American West, a band of brothers and associates who robbed trains and banks across the plains until their careers ended in a disastrous raid. Before that, they had ties to the town of Meade, where one of the Dalton sisters and her husband lived in a modest house.

The legend that draws visitors is the tunnel. A hidden underground passage connected the house to a barn behind it, and the story holds that gang members used it to slip in and out and to escape unseen when danger threatened. The house, the barn, and the restored tunnel are preserved as a museum, and visitors can walk through the passage that gave the outlaws their secret way out.

The Dalton Gang's run came to a spectacular and bloody end when several of the brothers attempted to rob two banks at once in a single Kansas town, hoping to outdo the exploits of earlier outlaws. The townspeople recognized them and fought back, and most of the gang were killed in the ensuing gun battle, ending their brief but notorious career.

That dramatic downfall cemented the Daltons' place in Old West legend, and the Meade hideout, with its escape tunnel, has become a way for the town to preserve and share its brush with that history. It is one of many Kansas connections to the outlaw era of the plains, when railroads, cattle towns, and lawlessness collided across the frontier.

Just outside town, Meade County State Park surrounds a small lake and ranks among the oldest units in the Kansas state park system, dating back to the era when the state and federal government developed such recreation areas during the Great Depression. The lake and its shoreline offer a green, watered spot in the dry surrounding plains.

The park offers camping, fishing, and picnicking, and its longevity gives it a settled, mature feel, with trees and facilities grown in over the decades. For travelers crossing the wide-open southwest of Kansas, it provides a welcome place to stop, camp, or simply rest beside the water before continuing across the plains.

Meade lies in the high plains of southwestern Kansas, flat cattle-and-wheat country under a huge sky, south of the famous cattle town of Dodge City. This was long the country of Plains nations including the Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, who followed the bison across the grasslands, and whose peoples continue today, most now centered in Oklahoma.

The surrounding landscape is open, dry, and agricultural, which makes both the wooded park lake and the town's frontier history stand out. Spring and fall bring the mildest weather for camping and touring, while summers on the high plains are hot and bright and winters cold and windswept across the open country.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.