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Don & Sharon Meyer, chuckwagon

Woman and man standing in front of chuckwagon
Sharon and Don Meyer

The documentary movie is being filmed in a remote part of the western U.S. Who is feeding the hundreds of cast members and extras in this wilderness?

Would you believe, a Kansas couple with a specially built chuckwagon and grill?

Don and Sharon Meyer are the owners of this remarkable chuckwagon with its built-in gas grill. Don Meyer has always been a skilled handyman and mechanic. He was born in a house that his great-grandfather built in 1909. The house is in Carlton, Kansas, south of Abilene.

Meyer grew up helping his father on the farm and then worked in construction, building grain elevators. He now helps his son run the family feedyard.

“In the mid-1980s, my dad had a party out at the farm,” Meyer said. “People came with their own barbecue cookers, and I thought there ought to be a safer way to do that.”

“I like to build stuff,” he added.

He thought about how to design a portable cooking wagon of his own in the shape of an old-time western chuckwagon. The café in nearby Gypsum was closing, so Meyer bought the stove and saved the grill. He knew a guy who had an old wagon running gear and got some 120-year-old boards from what had been a horse barn near Pratt.

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