Boot Hill.—Hays City's early history was one of bloodshed and violence. Being a frontier town and for a time the end of the Kansas Pacific railway, it was the natural rendezvous of vicious characters and desperadoes. A year after the town was started the population numbered over 1,000, the majority of which were of the undesirable classes, while saloons, dance halls and bagnios flourished everywhere. In these resorts the soldiers from Fort Hays almost daily met the desperate characters of the town and a carnival of crime and murder was the natural result. A place of sepulture was needed for the victims, and a hill about a quarter of a mile from the older part of the town was used as a cemetery, acquiring the name of "Boot Hill" on account of those who died violent deaths and were buried "with their boots on." From 1867 to 1874 it is estimated that about seventy interments were made in this cemetery, none of whom were buried with ceremony.

From time to time soldiers from the fort came over to "clean out" the town, and in 1874 the better class of citizens successfully resisted an attempt of this kind, after which there were few or no more interments made on Boot Hill. By 1904, the town of Hays City had spread until it surrounded "Boot Hill." The ground then owned by Mr. C. W. Sweeney was sold to P. J. Shutts, who had the bodies removed to the regular cemetery to enable him to erect a fine residence on "this ground, the last resting place of many a turbulent character."