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. Over the following decades, the city evolved into a regional economic hub. Development of
oil fields in the surrounding area began in 1936 with Hays serving as a trading center and shipping point.
Hays Regional Airport opened in 1961.
Interstate 70 reached Hays in 1966. Today, Hays is a commercial and educational center for western Kansas. ==Geography==