While looking around for places to keep myself occupied in Southeastern Kansas, I happened upon an abandoned race track, Camptown Greyhound Park; “Greyhound Park” being a euphemism for “dog track.” The place was still in decent shape, and didn’t look to be that old, but I could tell it had been closed for a while as it was already getting kind of run down.

I pulled into the oversized parking lot – now becoming overgrown with weeds – and noticed I wasn’t the only one there. A couple of truckers were there sleeping, one of whom woke up just long enough to notice my presence, and then fell back asleep.

The place was big, and would’ve been pretty nice when it was all up and running. The main building still had its lights turned on, probably to scare away potential burglars and/or drifters, and I heeded their warning, though I did peer inside. There were sections of indoor bleachers set up so that gamblers could watch the dogs through a large window, but some of them had been torn out, as if they were in the process of remodeling when they closed (or possibly still building the place).

There were also several outbuildings and viewing platforms in various states of disrepair, and the scoreboard had definitely seen better days. I walked along the track, which was totally overgrown, and noticed some official Camptown cups sitting on a fencepost. The whole place exuded a somewhat eerie feeling, probably because, while it obviously hadn’t been used for some time, it didn’t feel like the owners had really abandoned it. I decided not to do any more poking around and continued into town.

The townspeople all had different stories about the place, some conflicting, but the general consensus was that it was a stupid place to put a dog track in the first place, and everyone expected it to go belly-up. The parking lot is used for Driver’s Ed classes, according to one source, and the site hosted a large New Year’s bash not too long ago, which may be the source of the cups I found. Apparently the owners are working on getting the place turned into a full-fledged casino, but only time will tell if that pans out.