Dodge City ? With the state’s four-casino agenda suddenly shaken by the withdrawals of two developers, officials of Ford County and Butler National Service Corp. say plans for a Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Dodge City remain firmly on track.

“I believe the only real thing we have to say is we still plan to go forward,” Clark Stewart, president of Olathe-based Butler National, told the Dodge City Daily Globe. “That’s the key item out of all of this.”

A 2007 Kansas law provides for one state-owned casino in each of four regions, with private firms designing, building and managing the enterprises. The Kansas Lottery will own the actual gambling and holds the contracts with the developers.

Designated developer Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. cited the poor economy in announcing this week it could not assemble funding for a $535 million casino in the south-central region. Penn National, the chosen developer in the two-county southeast region, walked away in September, saying a new, nearby Indian casino complex in Oklahoma made the project unprofitable.

Those projects will be rebid.

For now, Ford and Wyandotte counties remain the only two zones with active projects. And some people in southwest Kansas wonder about the Dodge City project’s stability, especially as larger corporations became gun shy. But Stewart was adamant that plans were progressing.

Butler’s Boot Hill Casino and Resort is to be built on U.S. Highway 50 west of downtown Dodge City.