Hays Public Library Digital photo archive

If any of you like to research the history of the area, check out this link. The Hays Public Library has their photo collection accessible thru their website now. There are some very inetresting photos to look at.

http://digitalarchive.hayspublib.org/gsdl/cgi-bin/library?e=p-01000-00---off-0kansasro--00-1--0-10-0---0---0prompt-10---4-------0-1l--11-en-50---20-about---00-3-1-00-0-0-11-1-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&cl=CL2

That is soooooooo cool Thank you

That's a great link, LukeTHr! Thanks!

I really enjoy old photos of this area, especially when you can find a bunch of them of the same area over a period of time. The things you can learn from the photos is quite surprising.

This is so cool, it's too bad that they don't have exact locations/addresses for each and every one of these places listed. It makes me want to jump in the vehicle with the laptop and compare now and then. How awesome!!

LukeTHr wrote:

I really enjoy old photos of this area, especially when you can find a bunch of them of the same area over a period of time. The things you can learn from the photos is quite surprising.

It was fun looking at them with my girls. They kept asking if I was alive when those building were there, or when some of the pictures were taken. Of course, I had to tell them the story of the nuns swatting at bats in what was St. Joseph Elementary, when I was in 4th grade (is it still st. joe's?).

SlumberGirl wrote:

This is so cool, it's too bad that they don't have exact locations/addresses for each and every one of these places listed. It makes me want to jump in the vehicle with the laptop and compare now and then. How awesome!!

I was thinking the same thing, SG. There was one page with some of the addresses and resident's names listed, but not many.

I also noticed the Raynesford House in Ellis being pictured a couple of times. I think I remember Ratzilla saying that it was haunted. I'm going to try and remember to show these to the hubby tonight. He will get a kick out of it!

Edited because I remembered taking my son's boy scout troop on the historic walk downtown and when we walked past the dry cleaners (catty corner from the post office)...the guy inside brought us in and told us how the place used to be the jail. It was pretty interesting.

The old Raynesford place has burned down, but there's several stories associated with it. My nephew and I were digging old bottles near the house once when my nephew said an old guy was watching us. I looked up but nobody was there, and there couldn't have been any way he could get there and leave without being detected. It was a calm dead quiet day and the entire area was covered with dry leaves and twigs that crunched as you walked. No one could have gotten within a hundred feet of us without being heard, and my nephew said the old man was only about 10 feet away on the bank above us.

I saw a pic of our house when it was brand spankin' new.

I looked for my old neighbor's house, before any other houses were built on his land, as base housing (?). Didn't see it.

Ratzilla wrote:

The old Raynesford place has burned down, but there's several stories associated with it. My nephew and I were digging old bottles near the house once when my nephew said an old guy was watching us. I looked up but nobody was there, and there couldn't have been any way he could get there and leave without being detected. It was a calm dead quiet day and the entire area was covered with dry leaves and twigs that crunched as you walked. No one could have gotten within a hundred feet of us without being heard, and my nephew said the old man was only about 10 feet away on the bank above us.

The old place that Ratzilla is referring to being burned down is not the same house in the photo. The burned down home was the homestead of Cassius M Raynesford. His son , Howard Raynesford built the house you see in the photos. On a side note about the house, there is a small garage just east of the house that Howard and his wife lived in while they worked on the construction of the house.

Hadn't seen the photo yet. I assumed they meant the old Raynesford dairy farm.

No, it's a pic of the house that Bear grew up in

Yeah, I know the place.

I wish they had one of the old place. Best I have run across so far is of the picnic grove and the old bridge out there

Yeah, I've never seen anything from the time the place was used either.

saw a pic of our house when it was brand spankin' new.Which one is yours?

Mine is the one surrounded by police cars.

Poor poor Elmer Chesshire. I could have went all day without seeing that!

Holy Cow! I thought it was bad having one of those shoved through my right foot... Yikes! Poor, poor man. Wonder how that happened.

At first I thought he might have fallen on a spike of some sort. My wife thought maybe Elmers wife got him with knitting needle. Some else I showed it to thought he had been shot in the head and that was placed in to track the path of the bullet.

Did they check trajectory in the 30's? That makes sense, if they did.