Hays, Kansas Hays, Kansas Main Street in Downtown Hays (2014) Location inside Ellis County and Kansas Location inside Ellis County and Kansas Hays is a town/city in and the governmental center of county of Ellis County, Kansas, United States. The biggest city in northwestern Kansas, it is the economic and cultural center of the region. It is also a college town, home to Fort Hays State University. As of the 2010 census, the town/city population was 20,510. Prior to American settlement of the area, the site of Hays was positioned 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 inside the region organized by the U.S.
As Kansas Territory in 1854. Kansas became a state in 1861, and the state government delineated the encircling area as Ellis County in 1867. Army established Fort Fletcher southeast of present-day Hays to protect stagecoaches traveling the Smoky Hill Trail.
A year later, the Army retitled the post Fort Hays with respect to the late Brig.
Alexander Hays. In late 1866, anticipating the assembly of the Kansas Pacific Railway as far west as Fort Hays, a party from St.
Louis, Missouri led by William Webb chose three sections of territory for colonization near the fort. In June 1867, to better serve the barns , the Army relocated Fort Hays 15 miles northwest to a site near where the barns was to cross Big Creek, a tributary of the Smoky Hill River.
Webb, meanwhile, established the Big Creek Land Company and then surveyed and platted a town site, which he titled Hays City after the fort, roughly one mile east of Rome.
The barns reached Hays City soon after that and constructed a depot there.
The barns 's arrival, combined with a cholera epidemic that hit Rome in the late summer of 1867, drove Rome businesses and inhabitants to relocate to Hays City.
Within a year, Rome was completely abandoned. As the end of the stockyards , Hays City interval rapidly, serving as the supply point for territories to the west and southwest. As a frontier town, Hays City experienced the kind of violence which later fueled the American myth of the Old West, including the 1869 murder of Union Pacific watchman James Hayes and subsequent vigilante hanging of three soldiers from the fort among 30 homicides which occurred amid the six years up to 1873. By 1885, the year Hays City was incorporated, a cemetery north of town held the bodies of some 79 outlaws and had turn into known as "Boot Hill." 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. Hays City became the governmental center of county of Ellis County in 1870.
In the late 1860s and early 1870s, rougher elements of the populace began to leave, many following the Kansas Pacific barns assembly west to Logan County or moving to Dodge City to the south. Hays City became more civilized, especially as Volga Germans entered Ellis County in 1876, finding its territory suitable for their lifestyle and the types of crops they had grown in Russia. They brought with them Turkey Red Wheat, a type of winter wheat whose cultivation contributed to the agricultural transformation of the region. Bukovina Germans began settling in the region in 1886. These groups had a momentous impact on the small-town way of life, establishing Hays as a county-wide center of ethnic German culture.
Fort Hays closed in 1889.
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 territory 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. Several disasters have hit Hays over the course of its history.
Hays began to modernize in the early 1900s with a power plant, waterworks, telephone exchange, and sewage fitness complete by 1911. Over the following decades, the town/city evolved into a county-wide economic hub.
Development of petroleum fields in the encircling 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 Kansas. Hays is positioned at 38 52 46 N 99 19 20 W (38.879399, 99.322277) at an altitude of 2,021 feet (616 m). Located in northwestern Kansas at the intersection of Interstate 70 and U.S.
Route 183, Hays is 134 miles (216 km) northwest of Wichita, 256 miles (412 km) west of Kansas City, and 311 miles (501 km) east-southeast of Denver. The town/city lies in the Smoky Hills region of the Great Plains approximately 11 miles (18 km) north of the Smoky Hill River and 15 miles (24 km) south of the Saline River. Big Creek, a tributary of the Smoky Hill River, runs through the southwestern part of the city.
According to the United States Enumeration Bureau, the town/city has a total region of 7.95 square miles (20.59 km2), all of it land. The average temperature in Hays is 54 F (12 C). Over the course of a year, temperatures range from an average low of 16.2 F ( 8.8 C) in January to an average high of 92.4 F (33.6 C) in July.
The high temperature reaches or exceeds 90 F (32 C) an average of 63 days a year and reaches or exceeds 100 F (38 C) an average of 14 days a year.
The hottest temperature recorded in Hays was 117 F (47 C) on July 13, 1934; the coldest temperature recorded was 26 F ( 32 C) on February 13, 1905. On average, Hays receives 23.45 inches (596 mm) of rain annually with the biggest share being received from May through August. The average relative humidity is 64%. There are, on average, 77 days of calculable rain each year.
Climate data for Hays, Kansas The three industries employing the biggest percentages of the working civilian workforce force were: educational services, community care, and civil assistance (30.7%); retail trade (16.2%); and arts, entertainment, recreation, and accommodation and food services (10.5%). Hays Medical Center, Fort Hays State University, and Hays Public Schools are the city's three biggest employers.
The cost of living in Hays is mostly low; compared to a U.S.
Average of 100, the cost of living index for the town/city is 81.7. As of 2012, the median home value in the town/city was $147,300, the median chose monthly owner cost was $1,254 for housing units with a mortgage and $445 for those without, and the median gross rent was $584. Hays City Hall (2014) Hays is a town/city of the second class with a commission-manager form of government which it adopted in 1919.
The town/city manager is hired by the commission and is responsible for advising the commission, enforcing its policies, administering town/city employees, and preparing a proposed town/city budget. As the county seat, Hays is the administrative center of Ellis County.
Hays lies inside Kansas's 1st U.S.
A four-year enhance college with more than 11,000 students, it is the fourth biggest university in Kansas. North Central Kansas Technical College, a two-year enhance college based in Beloit, Kansas, also has a ground in Hays. Immediately south of the city, Kansas State University operates its Agricultural Research Center Hays, formerly the Fort Hays Experiment Station.
Hays Public Library, positioned downtown, is the city's chief library.
Route 183 runs north-south through Hays, intersecting I-70 immediately north of the city.
183 bypass route runs around Hays to the west from U.S.
Hays Regional Airport is positioned just southeast of the city. Used primarily for general aviation, it hosts one commercial airline United Express, which offers daily jet service to Denver, Colorado.
Union Pacific Railroad provides freight rail transport via its Kansas Pacific (KP) line which runs southeast-northwest through downtown Hays in the southern part of the city. Water manufacturing and distribution, waste water compilation and treatment, and sewage maintenance are the responsibility of the town/city government's Utilities Department. The government's Public Works Department and a several small-town businesses furnish trash removal. Midwest Energy, Inc., a county-wide energy business headquartered in the city, provides both electric power and natural gas service. Hays Medical Center is the sole hospital in the city.
The Hays Daily News is the city's daily journal Main article: Media in Hays, Kansas The Hays Daily News is the city's major newspaper, presented six days a week. In addition, Fort Hays State University prints a weekly student newspaper, The University Leader. Hays is a center of broadcast media for central and northwestern Kansas. One AM airways broadcast, 12 FM airways broadcasts, and three tv stations are licensed to and/or broadcast from the city. Hays is in the Wichita-Hutchinson tv market, and two tv stations broadcast from the city, one CBS network partner and one ABC translator station, both of which are satellite stations of their respective affiliates in Wichita. The third station is the flagship station of Smoky Hills Public Television, the PBS member network covering Kansas.
Licensed to Hays, it broadcasts from studios in Bunker Hill, Kansas. The town/city government's Parks Department maintains 16 parks in the city.
183 bypass route from the Fort Hays State Historic Site. Divided into eastern, western, and northern sections, it includes an 18-hole disc golf course and pens which are home to a herd of American bison kept at the park since 1953. The department also maintains three baseball parks, a soccer complex, tennis courts, a roller hockey and skateboard park, and a second, 9-hole disc golf course. In addition, the Hays Recreation Commission manages a municipal swimming pool and a waterpark, Hays Aquatic Park. There are two golf courses in the city, Fort Hays Municipal Golf Course and Smoky Hill Country Club. The municipal course is an 18-hole course positioned immediately southwest of the city, assembled around the Fort Hays historical site. Smoky Hill Country Club is a private, 18-hole course that opened in the part of the town/city in 1962. The Hays Arts Council operates the Hays Arts Center Gallery which displays the work of Kansas artists and sponsors exhibitions and competitions throughout the year.
The Hays Symphony Orchestra, established in 1914, is an ensemble of university, regional, and improve musicians which performs in FHSU's Beach/Schmidt Performing Arts Center.
Hays is a county-wide center of German American culture due to the number of German immigrants who settled the region in the 1870s and 1880s. As of 2010, 56.5% of the town/city population claimed German ancestry. The town/city hosts a several affairs throughout the year which jubilate this tradition including two Oktoberfests.
Fort Hays State University and The Volga German Society hold an Oktoberfest celebration on the first or second Friday in October.
On the first weekend in December, the Kansas Historical Society holds Christmas Past at Historic Fort Hays, highlighting history programs and tours of the fort with it decorated for Christmas as it was in the late 1800s. There are a several exhibitions and sites in Hays dedicated to aspects of region history.
Affiliated with the university's Departments of Geosciences and Biology, the exhibition also hosts educational programs on fossil preparation and ongoing scientific research. The Ellis County Historical Society Museum, positioned downtown, maintains exhibits of artifacts from the area's Old West reconstructionthrough its settlement by Volga and Bukovina Germans.
Southwest of Hays, the Kansas Historical Society maintains the Fort Hays State Historic Site.
Other sites related to the area's frontier reconstructioninclude Boot Hill, the city's earliest cemetery, and a historical marker at the site of the ill-fated town of Rome. To capitalize on the community's Old West heritage, the small-town chamber of commerce promotes downtown Hays as the historic Chestnut Street District.
Joseph's Church in Hays is listed on the National Register of Historical Places There are 27 Christian churches in Hays, the majority of which are Protestant.
Hays is also home to a Baha'i community. The Hays District of the United Methodist Church, which consists of 21 counties in northwestern Kansas, is headquartered in the city. Fort Hays State University's athletic teams, known as the Fort Hays Tigers, compete in a several sports in the NCAA Division II MIAA conference. The team dates back to 1869 when small-town inhabitants founded it as The Hays Town Team. From June through August, the Mid America Rodeo Company puts on rough stock rodeo performances on weeknights, including Saddle bronc and bareback riding, bull riding, and barrel racing, as well as experienced horse racing affairs. The Plainsman (1936) and Wild Bill (1995), both of which dramatize the life and longterm position of Wild Bill Hickok, are partially set in Hays amid the late 1860s and early 1870s. Paper Moon (1973) is partially set in Great Depression-era Hays, and a portion of the film was shot in the city. Main article: List of citizens from Hays, Kansas See also: List of citizens from Ellis County, Kansas and List of Fort Hays State University citizens Several Old West figures lived in Hays amid its reconstructionas a frontier outpost, including Calamity Jane (1852-1903), Buffalo Bill Cody (1846-1917), General George Custer (1839-1876) and his wife Elizabeth (1842-1933), and gunfighters Wild Bill Hickok (1837-1876) and Clay Allison (1840-1887). Other notable individuals who were born in and/or have lived in Hays include company magnate Philip Anschutz (1939- ), U.S.
Hays has two sister metros/cities as designated by Sister Cities International: Kansas : A Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Institutions, Industries, Counties, Cities, Towns, Prominent Persons, Etc; 3 Volumes; Frank W.
"City of Hays, Kansas".
City of Hays, Kansas The mayor is Tristan Schwien.
"The Hays Community".
Fort Hays State University.
"American Fact - Finder 2".
"Kansas Territory".
(1912), "Ellis County", Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing affairs, establishments, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc., 2, Chicago: Standard, p.
(1883), "Hays City", History of the State of Kansas, Chicago: A.T.
"Hays, Kansas - Lawless in the Old Days".
"Ellis County, Kansas - City of Rome".
(1912), "Hays", Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing affairs, establishments, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc., 2, Chicago: Standard, p.
"Black Soldiers At Fort Hays, Kansas, 1867-1869: A Study In Civilian And Military Violence.".
"History of Hays.".
City of Hays, Kansas.
"Hays, Kansas History".
"An Old Trail Plowed Under Hays to Dodge.".
"Kansas Post Offices, 1828-1961".
Welcome to Downtown Hays, Kansas.
"City Distance Tool".
"General Highway Map - Ellis County, Kansas" (PDF).
"Average weather for Hays, KS".
"Historical Weather for Hays, Kansas, United States of America".
"Hays, Kansas".
"City Commission".
City of Hays, Kansas.
City of Hays, Kansas.
"Welcome to North Central Kansas Technical College".
"Hays Public Library Hays, KS".
Hays Public Library.
Fort Hays State University.
Fort Hays State University.
City of Hays, Kansas.
City of Hays, Kansas.
City of Hays, Kansas.
Hays Medical Center.
"Hays Medical Center".
"Hays Daily News".
"Radio Stations in Hays, Kansas".
"Stations for Hays, Kansas".
City of Hays, Kansas.
City of Hays, Kansas.
City of Hays, Kansas.
City of Hays, Kansas.
"Hays Aquatic Park".
City of Hays, Kansas.
City of Hays, Kansas.
City of Hays, Kansas.
Fort Hays State University.
City of Hays, Kansas.
Fort Hays State University.
Fort Hays State University.
City of Hays, Kansas.
"Hays District".
The Hays District of the United Methodist Church.
Fort Hays State University Department of Athletics.
City of Hays, Kansas.
"Sister City Directory".
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hays, Kansas.
City of Hays Hays - Directory of Public Officials Official Hays Convention and Visitors Bureau Hays Daily News Hays USD 489, small-town enhance school precinct Hays High School, small-town enhance school Summary of Hays history Historic Images of Hays, Special Photo Collections at Wichita State University Library Hays City Map, KDOT Municipalities and communities of Ellis County, Kansas, United States County seat: Hays Ellis Hays Schoenchen Victoria
Categories:
American Old West - Bukovina German diaspora - Cities in Kansas - County seats in Kansas - Micropolitan areas of Kansas - Populated places established in 1867 - Cities in Ellis County, Kansas - Boot Hill cemeteries - University suburbs in the United States - Hays, Kansas
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