I love old stories like this...I guess the Ellis county gold rush never panned out..pun intended Smoky Hill City - Back in the late 19th century, gold was on everyones minds when Charles Holliday and his railroad magnate father, Cyrus K. Holliday, believed that the Smoky Hill River area of Ellis County contained valuable mineral deposits. The idea that the shale along the Smoky Hill River contained ore started in the mid-1800s as a swindle by Native Americans who said that they knew of tin mines along the river and in the 1890s, prospectors found ore bearing low percentages of zinc in areas of Ellis and adjacent Trego Counties. Kansas gold rush Several towns were formed during Kansas illustrious gold rush. Sure that there might be gold in them thar hills, Charles Holliday bought land on the north bank of the Smoky Hill River to build a town he believed would become center of Kansas first gold rush. A townsite was platted and filed in 1899 and Holliday immediately began selling lots. Some of the first residents came from nearby Chetolah, also now an extinct town, just across the Smoky Hill River and a post office opened in 1900. Two gold mills -- the Close and Holliday, would operate in the area for three years, but showed very little profit. Though gold and zinc was found in very small amounts, the cost proved far to much. For a few more years, miners scrambled up and down the river looking for the Mother Lode, but would be disappointed. The Ellis County gold boom sputtered along from 1895 to 1903, by which time most everyone realized that there was no gold in the shale. Charles Holliday abandoned the townsite in 1905, but the settlement continued to survive for several more years. In 1910 it had a population of 75, but people continued to leave and in 1915, its post office closed its doors forever. Nothing remains of the town today. It was located approximately 12 miles southwest of Hays.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 09:02:42 +0000
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