Many of the western town, including Wichita, Dodge City, and Tombstone, prohibited carrying weapons within the town limits. These ordinances were usually passed soon after incorporation. Both Wichita ("Leave Your Revolvers At Police Headquarters, and Get a Check") and Dodge City ("The Carrying of Fire Arms strictly prohibited") had large, prominent signs announcing this.

That being said, Wichita seems to have kept a rather large number of 'secret police' or armed militia of trustworthy citizens that kept firearms and assisted the regular law enforcement if a large group of cowboys got out of hand. Deputies seem to have gone armed, as Wyatt Earp once had his revolver slip out of the holster and discharge in a Wichita saloon.

However, there was often an 'entertainment district' outside the city limits, south of the railroad tracks in Dodge City, and across the Arkansas River in Delano in the case of Wichita. Given the need for such ordinances and the large signs, it's likely that many outside of those limits were, in fact, armed, and many of these were cowboys passing through on the cattle drives. In March of 1882, at the Stockman's Convention in Caldwell, Kansas, a resolution was passed to stop the cowboys from carrying, and this ban quickly spread.

Outside the cities, on their own ranches, you'd be more likely to see people with a shotgun or a carbine in a saddle scabbard, more useful against rattlesnakes, mountain lions and cattle rustlers than a pistol.

Agnew, Jeremy, The Old West in Fact and Film: History Versus Hollywood

Winkler, Adam, Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America

Vestal, Stanley, Dodge City: Queen of Cowtowns

Jay, Roger, "Reign of the Rough-Scuff: Law and Lucre in Wichita" in Wild West

McEndarfer, Jodi Violence in the Cattle Towns

Wichita City Eagle, July 9, 1874.