Hays is a city in and the county seat of Ellis County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 21,116. Hays is home to Fort Hays State University.
History
Before American settlement of the area, the site of Hays was located near where the territories of the Arapaho, Kiowa, and Pawnee met. Claimed first by France as part of 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. Kansas became a state in 1861. The state government delineated the surrounding area as Ellis County in 1867.
In 1865, the U.S. Army established 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 Brig. Gen. Alexander Hays, killed in the Battle of the Wilderness. 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. 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, a tributary of the Smoky Hill River. Seeing a business opportunity, Buffalo Bill Cody and railroad contractor William Rose founded the settlement of 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. As the western terminus of the railway, Hays City grew rapidly, serving as the supply point for territories to the west and southwest.
As a frontier town, Hays City experienced the kind of violence that gave rise to the myth of the American Old West. Several notable figures of the Old West lived in the Hays City of this era, including George Armstrong Custer, his wife Elizabeth Bacon Custer, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Wild Bill Hickok who served a brief term as sheriff in 1869. 30 homicides occurred between 1867 and 1873 including a deadly saloon shootout involving Fort Hays soldiers. A cemetery north of town became known as “Boot Hill”; by 1885, it held the bodies of some 79 outlaws.
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. 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. This and numerous other racial incidents throughout the last half of the 19th century African Americans living in nearby Nicodemus were not welcome after dark. No signs formally establishing this policy were posted, but the town's reputation for racial discrimination persisted for decades. 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 railroad construction west to Sheridan or moving south to Dodge City. 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. and in 1895, it was renamed as simply Hays.
Fort Hays closed in 1889. In 1900, the Kansas delegation to the 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 Agricultural College, on the Fort Hays reservation and set aside land for the Western Branch of 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.
Hays began to modernize in the early 1900s with a power plant, waterworks, telephone exchange, and sewer system complete by 1911.
The city lies in the Smoky Hills region of the Great Plains approximately north of the Smoky Hill River and south of the Saline River. Big Creek, a tributary of the Smoky Hill River, runs through the southwestern part of the city. Chetolah Creek, a tributary of Big Creek, flows south through the eastern part of the city.
Climate
Hays sits near the convergence of a humid continental climate (Köppen Dwa) and a temperate semi-arid climate (Köppen BSk). It typically experiences hot summers with variable humidity and cold winters. Due to its geographic location at a climatic boundary, severe weather is common, with tornadoes a major threat, especially in the spring and early summer months. On average, January is the coldest month, and July is both the hottest and wettest month. The hottest temperature recorded in Hays was on July 13, 1934, while the coldest temperature recorded was on January 14, 1905, and February 13, 1905.
|source 2 = National Weather Service