Apart from numerous feedlots fattening cattle for slaughter, and a few wheat, corn, and beet farms fed by water diverted from the Arkansas River, there’s not much to see in the 120 miles of barren plains that stretch east from the Colorado border. On the western outskirts of Garden City, the region’s biggest town, US-50 runs through the meat-packing town of Holcomb, notorious as the site of the In Cold Blood murders documented by Truman Capote. In 1959, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock ruthlessly killed the entire Clutter family during a robbery attempt. Both killers were eventually captured, convicted, and executed.
At Garden City, 50 miles west of Dodge City, US-50 crosses US-83, The Road to Nowhere, which follows the 100th Meridian from Canada to Mexico.
