Smoky Hill City, Kansas facts for kids
Smoky Hill City was once a small town in Ellis County, Kansas, in the United States. Today, it is a ghost town, meaning it's completely abandoned. It's located about 12 miles (19 km) southwest of Hays.
A Town Built on a Dream
The land for Smoky Hill City was bought by Charles K. Holliday in 1899. Charles was the son of a famous railroad builder, Cyrus K. Holliday. Both father and son believed that this area had valuable minerals, like gold. The town was planned on the north side of the Smoky Hill River. It was meant to serve gold mines that Charles Holliday imagined would open there. He thought there was gold in the rock layers along the river valley.
Charles Holliday started selling pieces of land in the new town. Some of the first people to move there came from a nearby town called Chetolah. Chetolah had been started ten years earlier, hoping a railroad would come through, but it never did. Since the powerful Holliday family was supporting Smoky Hill City, people from Chetolah moved to the new town.
The Gold Idea
The idea that the rocks along the Smoky Hill River had valuable minerals began in the mid-1800s. At first, some people spread stories about finding tin mines there. Later, in the 1890s, people thought they found zinc in the rocks. Then, they became convinced they had found gold.
This belief was encouraged by some people who were not honest. They would claim to test the rocks and say there was gold, even if there wasn't. Other people tried to sell secret ways to get gold out of the rocks.
A Kansas state geologist named Erasmus Haworth strongly warned everyone that there was no real gold to be found. Even though powerful people threatened to have him fired, he kept telling the truth. The excitement about gold in Ellis County lasted from 1895 to 1903. By then, almost everyone realized that there was no gold that could be dug up from the rocks.
The Town Disappears
In 1905, Charles Holliday asked Ellis County to cancel Smoky Hill City's official town status. The small settlement stayed for a few more years. But eventually, everyone left, and it became a completely abandoned ghost town.
Where It Was
The town site covered about 540 acres (2.2 km2). It was located at 38°45′42.4″N 99°31′55.9″W / 38.761778°N 99.532194°W. The elevation there is about 2,000 feet (610 m) above sea level.
