By ELISHA BECK

Special to The Hays Daily News

The Ellis County Historical Society is sponsoring a fundraiser April 18. The spring bus tour will explore the scenic and historic area of nearby Rooks, Osborne and Russell counties. Leaving promptly at 1 p.m. from the ECHS museum, the tour will head north from Hays on U.S. Highway 183 and turn east on Kansas Highway 18. The road runs though a number of interesting small towns such as Codell. This town made Ripley's Believe It or Not column for being destroyed by tornadoes in 1916, 1917 and 1918, always on May 20. Along the highway, the tour will stop in Natoma to view one of Kansas artist Stan Herd's first murals, which can be found in the lobby of United National Bank.

On the way to our next stop, we will see many limestone structures, including WPA projects in the towns of Paradise, Waldo and Luray. Next, after a tour of the Grassroots Art Center in Lucas, we will drive by the S.P. Dinsmoor Garden of Eden. We then will cross the Saline River on the dam of the Wilson Reservoir, where you can enjoy the beauty of the clearest lake in Kansas. Moving on to Old U.S. Highway 40, the tour will visit ProBound Sports in Dorrance. The family-run company manufactures many of the backboards used by all levels of basketball.

The tour concludes with a buffet dinner at Meridy's Restaurant and Lounge in Russell. The tour will return to the ECHS museum at approximately 6 p.m. The cost of this event is $45 (tax included) per person and includes the meal, bus, entrance cost to art center and narrator, Virginia Slimmer. Tickets are available for purchase now at the ECHS, 100 W. Seventh, or the Hays Welcome Center, 27th and Vine. Tickets must be purchased in advance by April 12.

Exhibit

From March 30 to April 30, the museum will have the exhibit "A Chronicle of Quilts: Revisiting Past Quilt Exhibits" at the museum. Due to the large acquisition of artifacts from Sternberg Museum of Natural History, our normal temporary gallery in the historic Stone Church will not be used for the quilt exhibit. Instead, the exhibit will be featured in the museum basement and will display quilts representing the variety of quilt exhibit themes the museum has had through the past 30 years. Visitors will be able to view quilts loaned by local quilters and historic quilts from the museum collection. It also will have a hands-on activity for children.

Artifacts

The society is working on processing artifacts loaned from Sternberg. Sometime in the near future, we will start adding some of the Sternberg historical artifacts into our existing permanent exhibits.

Board meeting

The public is welcome to attend the next monthly board meeting at 5:30 p.m. March 29.

From the archives

The town of Hays began with temporary people and businesses; however, by 1887, it had several permanent buildings such as banks, hardware and general stores, jewelry stores, dressmakers and photographers. The town also had an implement dealership and several real estate and insurance agents. Business continued to grow through the turn of the century.

One type of business that could be seen throughout downtown Hays was meat markets. Photographs of old North and South Main streets (what is now 10th and Ninth streets) show several frame buildings with "Meat Market" painted across the front. According to the Democratic Times on Feb. 29, 1888, Hays had at least three meat markets, Thomas Carrick's meat market, located on the west end of old North Main, Joseph Shaffer's meat market, located on North Main, opposite the train depot, and Staab and Depperschmidt's meat market, location unknown.

The Republican newspaper on Jan. 28, 1899, advertised "Thos. Carrick, Proprietor of the Chestnut St. Meat Market, Will always keep on hand the best of beef, veal, pork, mutton, smoked meats, etc. Oysters in Season." On May 14, 1909, the Ellis County News listed an ad for "Staab Meat Market: Our Meats are Fresh and Clean. We are not afraid of Gov't. Inspection. We pay the highest market price for hides. Opposite City Hall."

The ECHS museum recently acquired a meat wagon box, a relic from one of the early meat markets. The 4-foot-by-6-foot box includes a compartment for ice storage and hooks, which would have held meat for delivery. This particular box was stored in a barn on the old Jensen farm northeast of Hays for many years. Some time in the 1960s, the barn was torn down, and donor Bob Prockish moved the box to his garage in Stockon, where it stayed until a few months ago. Eventually, we would like to have this meat box on exhibit to the public.

For more information, contact us Tuesday through Friday between the hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. at 100 W. Seventh in Hays. You also can call (785) 628-2624 or visit www.elliscountyhistor icalmuseum.org.

Admission to the museum is $4 for adults and $1 for children between the ages of 3 and 12. Members and children younger than 3 are admitted free of charge. Research facilities are included in museum fee.

Elisha Beck is curator and exhibit designer at the Ellis County Historical Society