Hays, Kansas: A Railroad Fort Town With a Brief Cattle Trade

How did Hays start?

Hays began because of two things the federal government built: a fort and a railroad. Fort Hays was established in early 1867, and the Kansas Pacific Railroad planned to run through the area that same year. In June 1867 William F. Cody and William Rose founded a townsite called Rome, but Dr. William Webb, who held authority to set up railroad townsites, formed the Big Creek Land Company and platted Hays City about a mile to the east. Rome was gone within a year.

Hays City had over 1,000 residents within a year of its founding. When the railroad pushed on to Sheridan in 1868, the town suffered a temporary setback, but it remained a supply point for wagon trains on the Smoky Hill Trail.

Was Hays a cattle town?

Only in a limited sense. While it was the western terminus of the Kansas Pacific, Hays served as a railhead where Texas cattle were driven north and then shipped east. The Kansas Historical Society says its cattle business was brief and that Hays never became a major market, and it credits the nearby fort with helping the town's trade. Other places named in the same overview, Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Caldwell and Dodge City, handled far larger numbers.

Texas cattle were driven north in those years because beef that sold for about $2 a head in Texas could bring up to $40 in Chicago after the Civil War. Hays caught some of that trade because the rails ran through it, but it did not hold it.

Hickok, Boot Hill and a violent start

Early Hays had a reputation for violence. At the first county commissioners' meeting, 37 liquor licenses were granted in two days. Wild Bill Hickok served as a special marshal from 1867 to 1869, and the Legends of Kansas account credits him with killing two soldiers and two citizens. The same account calls the town's early history one of bloodshed and says Boot Hill got its name from the 45 men who died violently and were buried with their boots on.

Incidents in the record include the 1869 killing of John Hays, a military supply watchman, by three soldiers of the Thirty-eighth Infantry, who were then lynched by vigilantes, and the 1872 death of Sheriff Peter Lanahan, mortally wounded in a gunfight at Kelly's Saloon. In 1874 members of the Ninth Cavalry, a regiment of Black soldiers, clashed with armed citizens, and six soldiers were killed.

After the fort: fire, flood and growth

Fort Hays closed on 1 June 1889. A major fire in 1895 destroyed about 60 downtown businesses, and that same year the town's name was officially shortened from Hays City to Hays. Floods in 1907 and 1951 and a 1919 gasoline tank explosion that killed eight people and injured about 150 are among the disasters the town survived.

The population was about 1,300 in 1900 and 2,400 in 1910, then 9,378 by 1950. It stands at roughly 21,000 today.

Costs and context

Kansas restricted Texas cattle because they carried a tick that spread Spanish fever to local herds, which limited where the trade could operate. The violence recorded in early Hays fell on soldiers and civilians alike, and the sources describe several killings and lynchings.

Visit or learn more

For the town's story see the Legends of Kansas profile of Hays the Kansas Historical Society's overview of Kansas cowtowns and the Kansapedia entry on the Chisholm Trail. The fort grounds and Fort Hays State University are reminders of the town's origin. See more beef history through ranching stories on farm.FM and a farm.FM story on Kansas cowtowns.