Editing Hays, Kansas (section)

== History ==
{{See also|History of Kansas}}

Before American settlement of the area, the site of Hays was located near where the territories of the [[Arapaho]], [[Kiowa]], and [[Pawnee people|Pawnee]] met.<ref>{{cite web | last = Sturtevant | first = William C. | title = Early Indian Tribes, Culture Areas, and Linguistic Stocks [Map] | publisher = [[Smithsonian Institution]] | year = 1967 | url = http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/early_indian_west.jpg | access-date = June 18, 2014}}</ref> Claimed first by [[France]] as part of [[Louisiana (New France)|Louisiana]] and later acquired by the United States with the [[Louisiana Purchase]] in 1803, it lay within the area organized by the U.S. as [[Kansas Territory]] in 1854.<ref name=Territory>{{cite web | title = Louisiana Purchase | work = Kansapedia | publisher = [[Kansas Historical Society]] | date = Aug 2012 | url = http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/louisiana-purchase/17876 | access-date = March 5, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title = Kansas Territory | work = Kansapedia | date = Mar 2013 | url = http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/kansas-territory/14701 | access-date = March 5, 2013}}</ref> Kansas became a state in 1861. The state government delineated the surrounding area as [[Ellis County, Kansas|Ellis County]] in 1867.<ref name=Territory/><ref>{{Citation | contribution = Ellis County | title = Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. | editor-last = Blackmar | editor-first = Frank W. | volume = 2 | page = 578 | place = [[Chicago]] | publisher = Standard | year = 1912 | contribution-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=o8X5krq3fP8C&pg=PA578}}</ref>

In 1865, the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] established [[Fort Hays|Fort Fletcher]] southeast of present-day Hays to protect stagecoaches traveling the [[Smoky Hill Trail]]. A year later, the Army renamed the post [[Fort Hays]] in honor of the late [[Alexander Hays|Brig. Gen. Alexander Hays]], killed in The Battle of The Wilderness.<ref name=KSHS_History>{{cite web | url = http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/fort-hays/11793 | title = Fort Hays | work = Kansapedia | publisher = [[Kansas Historical Society]] | date = Nov 2011 | access-date = April 2, 2013}}</ref> In late 1866, anticipating the construction of the [[Kansas Pacific Railway]] as far west as Fort Hays, a party from [[St. Louis, Missouri]] led by William Webb selected three sections of land for colonization near the fort.<ref name=Cutler>{{Citation | last = Cutler | first = William G. | contribution = Hays City | title = History of the State of Kansas | place = [[Chicago]] | publisher = A.T. Andreas | year = 1883 | contribution-url = http://www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/ellis/ellis-co-p3.html#HAYS_CITY}}</ref> In June 1867, to better serve the railroad, the Army relocated Fort Hays 15 miles northwest to a site near where the railroad was to cross [[Big Creek (Kansas)|Big Creek]], a tributary of the [[Smoky Hill River]]. Seeing a business opportunity, [[Buffalo Bill Cody]] and railroad contractor William Rose founded the settlement of [[Rome, Ellis County, Kansas|Rome]] near the fort's new location. Within a month, the population of Rome grew to over 2,000. Webb, meanwhile, established the Big Creek Land Company and then surveyed and platted a town site, which he named '''Hays City''' after the fort, roughly one mile east of Rome. The railroad reached Hays City soon thereafter and constructed a depot there. The railroad's arrival, combined with a [[cholera]] epidemic that hit Rome in the late summer of 1867, drove Rome businesses and residents to relocate to Hays City. Within a year, Rome was completely abandoned.<ref name=Legends>{{cite web | last = Weiser | first = Kathy | title = Hays, Kansas - Lawless in the Old Days | publisher = Legends of Kansas |date = August 2009| url = http://www.legendsofkansas.com/hays.html | access-date = January 2, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Ellis County, Kansas - City of Rome |publisher=KSGenWeb Project |url=http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/ellis/rome.html |access-date=January 2, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130514104838/http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/ellis/rome.html |archive-date=May 14, 2013 }}</ref> As the western terminus of the railway, Hays City grew rapidly, serving as the supply point for territories to the west and southwest.<ref name=Cutler/><ref>{{Citation | contribution = Hays | title = Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. | editor-last = Blackmar | editor-first = Frank W. | volume = 2 | page = 832 | place = [[Chicago]] | publisher = Standard | year = 1912 | contribution-url = http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1912/h/hays.html | access-date = January 10, 2010 | archive-date = December 3, 2007 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071203054737/http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1912/h/hays.html | url-status = dead }}</ref>

As a frontier town, Hays City experienced the kind of violence that gave rise to the myth of the [[American frontier|American Old West]]. Several notable figures of the Old West lived in the Hays City of this era, including [[George Custer|George Armstrong Custer]], his wife [[Elizabeth Bacon Custer]], [[Calamity Jane]], [[Buffalo Bill|Buffalo Bill Cody]], and [[Wild Bill Hickok]] who served a brief term as [[sheriff]] in 1869.<ref name=HaysCity/><ref name=Thompson1>{{cite web | last = Thompson | first = Mary Ann | title = Hays, Kansas History | publisher = Kansas History Web Sites |date=n.d. | url = http://www.kansashistory.us/hayshist.html |access-date=November 27, 2016}}</ref> 30 homicides occurred between 1867 and 1873 including a deadly saloon shootout involving Fort Hays soldiers.<ref name=HaysCity>{{cite web |url=http://haysusa.net/Index.aspx?NID=118 |publisher=Hays Convention & Visitor Bureau |date=n.d.|title=History of Hays. |access-date=November 27, 2016}}</ref> A cemetery north of town became known as “[[Boot Hill]]”; by 1885, it held the bodies of some 79 outlaws.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/214513 |publisher=Kansas Historical Society |date=n.d. |title=Boot Hill |series=[Photo catalog entry] |access-date=November 27, 2016}}</ref>

Hays experienced significant racial violence during the same period. On January 7, 1869, the murder of Union Pacific watchman James Hayes led to the [[lynching]] of three African American soldiers of the 38th US Infantry Regiment.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2972&context=greatplainsquarterly |last=Leiker |first=James |year=1997 |title=Black Soldiers At Fort Hays, Kansas, 1867-1869: A Study In Civilian And Military Violence. |series=''Great Plains Quarterly'' 17 (Winter 1997), p. 11. |publisher=University of Nebraska Digital Commons. |access-date=November 27, 2016}}</ref><ref>[https://sites.lib.jmu.edu/lynchingmarkers/ks1869187101/ Hangmans Bridge]</ref> That same year, six black soldiers at Fort Hays were murdered, their bodies were dropped in a well that was sodded over, and they were falsely reported as deserters.  A mob then hunted down and lynched two black barbers, and the town's black residents were expelled.<ref name=Campney>{{cite book |last=Campney |first=Brent M. S. |year=2015|title=This Is Not Dixie: Racist Violence in Kansas, 1861 - 1927, Location 749|publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0252083792 }}</ref><ref>It should be noted  on the Campney Reference that in May 1869 two incidents are noted in Hays Kansas: two lynchings and a race riot with unknown victims [p.222] A Contemporary Newspaper account [https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85033699/1869-05-06/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=05%2F01%2F1869&index=6&rows=20&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=Hays+Kansas&proxdistance=5&date2=05%2F31%2F1869&ortext=&proxtext=Hays+Kansas+&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1 Nashville union and American. &#91;volume&#93;, May 06, 1869, Image 1] reports "A fight occurred on Monday at Hays City , Kansas between a lot of colored soldiers  of the 38th Infantry and Citizens, in which five citizens, among them United States Marshal Neis, and A White a soldier of the 7th Cavalry were wounded. Some five hundred shots are said to have been fired."</ref><ref>In 1910 transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Transactions/aDc5DxjbW_QC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Six+soldiers+from+Fort+Hays+killed+1869&pg=PA579&printsec=frontcover Transactions - Volume 9; Volume 11 - pp.579-580] claimed that in the fall of 1869 in Hays some Colored Troopers were denied admission to the "resort" of Jim Curry and Ida May in which a general fight broke out in which a number of soldiers were killed ''six, according to local memory...it does not appear any citizens were killed'' and that as a result the negro citizens were driven out of town. [https://www.hppr.org/hppr-news/2021-03-02/what-the-history-of-noose-road-tells-us-about-kansas-race-and-the-lynchings-of-black-men One recent account] quotes the Omaha World Herald reported the burial of the six killed; also the lynching of Hays two Barbers. A 1933 account listing Lynchings in Kansas reports only the 3 soldiers lynched at the Bridge in 1869 [https://www.kshs.org/p/history-of-lynchings-in-kansas/12580];[https://sites.lib.jmu.edu/lynchingmarkers/ks1869187101/] reports in August 1871 a man was lynched in Hays after stabbing a constable</ref> This and numerous other racial incidents throughout the last half of the 19th century<ref name=Campney/> gave Hays a reputation as a [[sundown town]].<ref>{{cite web | last = Leiker | first = James | title = Imagining the Free State: A 150-Year History of a Contested Image | work = Kansas History | publisher = Kansas Historical Society | date =Spring 2011 | url = https://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/2011spring_leiker.pdf | access-date = March 14, 2019}}</ref> African Americans living in nearby [[Nicodemus, Kansas|Nicodemus]] were not welcome after dark.<ref>{{cite interview|first=Angela|last=Bates|interviewer=[[Frank Stasio]]|title=Black History Month: Postcard from Kansas|work=[[Talk of the Nation]]|publisher=NPR|location=Washington, D.C.|date=February 17, 2005|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4503065|quote=Hays, Kansas, is about 55 miles southwest of—southeast of Nicodemus, and they had sundown laws there.}}</ref>  No signs formally establishing this policy were posted, but the town's reputation for racial discrimination persisted for decades.<ref>{{cite web | last = Loewen | first = James W. | title = Showing Hays in KS... | work = Sundown Towns in the United States | publisher = Tougaloo College | url = https://sundown.tougaloo.edu/sundowntownsshow.php?id=445 | access-date = March 13, 2019}}</ref> Hays City became the county seat of Ellis County in 1870, and the town became more civilized.  Rougher elements of the populace had begun to leave in the late 1860s, many following the [[Kansas Pacific Railway|Kansas Pacific]] railroad construction west to [[Sheridan, Logan County, Kansas|Sheridan]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.kshs.org/publicat/khq/1966/1966autumn_snell.pdf |last1=Snell |first1=Joseph |last2= Richmond |first2=Robert |year=1966 |title=When the Union & Kansas Pacific Built through Kansas. |series=''Kansas Historical Quarterly'' 36 (Autumn 1966), pp. 343, 346-48. |publisher=Kansas Historical Society. |access-date=November 27, 2016}}</ref> or moving south to [[Dodge City, Kansas|Dodge City]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://kshs.org/p/kansas-historical-quarterly-an-old-trail-plowed-under/13279 |last=Millbrook |first=Minnie Dubbs |year=1977 |title=An Old Trail Plowed Under Hays to Dodge. |series=Transcribed by Todd Roberts from ''Kansas Historical Quarterly'' 43 (Autumn 1977), pp. 264-81. |access-date=November 27, 2016 |archive-date=December 20, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220164933/http://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-historical-quarterly-an-old-trail-plowed-under/13279 |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Volga Germans]] started settling in Ellis County in 1876, finding its land suitable for their lifestyle and the types of crops they had grown in [[Russia]].<ref name=HaysCity/><ref name=Thompson1/> They brought with them Turkey Red Wheat, a type of [[winter wheat]] whose cultivation contributed to the agricultural transformation of the region.<ref name=Thompson1/> [[Bukovina Germans]] began settling in the area in 1886.{{citation needed|date=January 2017}} These groups had a significant impact on the local way of life, establishing Hays as a regional center of ethnic [[Culture of Germany|German culture]].  Hays City was [[Municipal corporation|incorporated]] in 1885,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.haysusa.com/  |date=n.d. |title=Welcome to Hays |publisher=City of Hays, Kansas |access-date=November 27, 2016}}</ref> and in 1895, it was renamed as simply '''Hays'''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.kshs.org/geog/geog_postoffices/search/placename:Hays |title=Kansas Post Offices, 1828-1961 |publisher=Kansas Historical Society |date=n.d. |access-date=November 27, 2016}}</ref>

Fort Hays closed in 1889. In 1900, the Kansas delegation to the [[United States Congress|U.S. Congress]] secured the fort's land and facilities for educational purposes. The following year, the [[Kansas Legislature]] established the Fort Hays Experiment Station, part of [[Kansas State University|Kansas State Agricultural College]], on the Fort Hays reservation and set aside land for the Western Branch of [[Emporia State University|Kansas State Normal School]], which opened in 1902 and eventually became [[Fort Hays State University]]. Fort Hays opened as a historical park in 1929 and was later acquired by the [[Kansas Historical Society]]. In 1967, it became the Fort Hays State Historic Site.<ref name=Legends/>

Several disasters have struck Hays over the course of its history. In 1895, fire destroyed 60 buildings downtown. Severe floods occurred in 1907 and [[Great Flood of 1951|1951]]. In 1919, three [[Amoco|Standard Oil]] gasoline tanks exploded, killing eight and injuring approximately 150 people. In 1935, the city experienced violent [[dust storms]] as part of the [[Dust Bowl]].<ref name=Legends/><ref name=Thompson2>{{cite web | last = Thompson | first = Mary Ann | title = History Timeline | work = Welcome to Downtown Hays, Kansas | publisher = Chestnut Street District | url = http://www.chestnutstreetdistrict.com/leisure/history.html | access-date = January 10, 2010 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100124100015/http://www.chestnutstreetdistrict.com/leisure/history.html | archive-date = January 24, 2010 }}</ref>

Hays began to modernize in the early 1900s with a [[power plant]], waterworks, [[telephony|telephone]] exchange, and sewer system complete by 1911.<ref name=Legends/> Over the following decades, the city evolved into a regional economic hub. Development of [[petroleum|oil]] fields in the surrounding area began in 1936 with Hays serving as a trading center and shipping point.<ref name=Britannica/> [[Hays Regional Airport]] opened in 1961.<ref name=Thompson2/> [[Interstate 70]] reached Hays in 1966.<ref name=HaysCity/> Today, Hays is a commercial and educational center for western Kansas.<ref name=Legends/>