Hays is a city and the county seat of Ellis County, Kansas, near the intersection of Interstate 70 and U.S. Highway 183. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 20,013. Hays is home to Fort Hays State University and the Hays Larks, champions of the Jayhawk Collegiate League for most of the 21st century.
The city of Hays was incorporated in 1867, close to the site of Fort Hays. In the early days, Hays was a wild and lawless town, filled wit...
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Hays is a city and the county seat of Ellis County, Kansas, near the intersection of Interstate 70 and U.S. Highway 183. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 20,013. Hays is home to Fort Hays State University and the Hays Larks, champions of the Jayhawk Collegiate League for most of the 21st century.
The city of Hays was incorporated in 1867, close to the site of Fort Hays. In the early days, Hays was a wild and lawless town, filled with saloons and dance halls. The legendary Wild Bill Hickok served as sheriff for a few months in 1869, but left town the next year after a brawl with some troopers from Fort Hays. Summing up her impression while her husband, George Custer, was encamped near Fort Hays, Elizabeth Custer said, "there was enough desperate history in that little town in one summer to make a whole library of dime novels." Between August 1867 and December 1873 there were over 30 homicides in and around Hays. Hays developed the reputation, which was well deserved, as...
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