By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

One hundred years ago in Hays, on Nov. 17, 1919, a fire and resulting gas explosion killed six residents and two firefighters.

At least 42 people were hospitalized with severe burns, four in critical condition, and another 100 or so residents suffered injuries.

“Blast From Bursting Tank Imperilled [sic] Lives of Hundreds” reads the secondary headline of the Nov. 20, 1919 issue of The Ellis County News, which called the gasoline and oil fire at the Standard Oil Company “the most disastrous and tragic event in the history of Hays.”

The two firefighters, Nick Arnhold, 34, and Steve Tourtillotte, 44, are the only two personnel known to have died in the line of duty in the history of the Hays Fire Department, according to Ryan Hagans, fire chief.

Much of the research about the disaster was done by two 30-year Hays firefighters, Richard Shubert, who died last year, and Ralph Burns, Jr., who passed away in 2008.

The men, aided by other volunteers, researched the history of the Hays Fire Department from its beginnings in 1878 through 1995 when the compilation was published.

“That’s how we, the members of the fire department, keep this event in the back of our minds,” says Hagans.

“You gotta know where you came from. The fire service is a family. Everybody likes to know their own family history, but it also teaches us the hows and whys of what we do today.”

A memorial plaque honoring Arnhold and Tourtillotte was installed in 1991 on the south exterior of the Hays fire station on Main Street.

Several years ago each shift made a presentation about the event to teach the firefighters about it and why the department operates differently today, a section labeled “Lessons Learned.

“There are advancements in firefighting technology, changes in building construction, implementation of fire and life-saving codes, building codes, zoning regulations,” Hagans said.

“All of that comes into play now because tragedy happened.”

News reports from The Ellis County News and the Hays Free Press recounted the catastrophe three days later in their newspapers dated Nov. 20, 1919.

The fire was started shortly before 7:30 a.m. by a vehicle backfiring in the garage of the Standard Oil Company, located in what today is the 200 block of East 10th Street next to the railroad tracks in downtown Hays.

The fire spread to three gasoline storage tanks in the garage, which began exploding.

At 8:15 a.m., the final and biggest explosion sent a 200-gallon gasoline barrel flying two blocks to the north through the residential area, showering flaming oil and debris onto a crowd of spectators gathered to watch the spreading fire.

The nearby Farmers Cooperative Union Elevator, filled to capacity, was also completely engulfed by fire.

“Fire Threatened Entire Eastern Portion of City. Flames Visible More than Forty Miles” read a subheadline in the News.

The residents killed were Phillip Sargent, Mrs. Lewis Miller, Miss Elizabeth Buchholz, Mrs. Peter Heronime, Peter Rheim and Miss Mary Stressler.

Three homes were also destroyed.

Total property loss was estimated at $60,500.

Approximately 16 Hays firefighters responded to the scene with two hose carts and one chemical wagon. Mutual aid was provided by the Ellis and La Crosse fire departments.

The State Fire Marshal of Kansas, L.T. Hussey, issued a report about the fire within a 1919 annual Kansas fire statistics summary to Gov. Henry Allen.

A deputy from Hussey’s office was dispatched to the scene in Hays “while the ruins were still burning.”

“This fire, or fires, rather, was the result of the too common error of keeping automobiles in a building adjacent to oil storage tanks. … I am convinced of the need of stringent regulations regarding the location of gasoline and oil storage plants, also the handling of gasoline and oil from these plants,” the report  read.

Hussey added that as a result of the Hays fire, his department was deluged with requests from all over Kansas for regulations covering the storage of large quantities of gasoline and oil near the residential or business sections of towns.

The National Fire Prevention Association changed its codes to require all flammable liquids storage tanks at all automotive service stations to be stored underground. Modern zoning regulations now keep industrial/business districts separated from residential areas.

Less than a year after the tragedy the city of Hays purchased its first mechanical fire truck on April 15, 1920. The first motorized fire truck, a REO Speedwagon, was purchased new in 1921.

The REO was tracked down by Shubert in Wichita Falls, Texas, and returned to Hays in July, 2016.

Among the advancements in the last 100 years is firefighting foam, which would most likely be used on such a fire today, according to Shane Preston, HFD deputy chief.

“We’d use a little bit of water, but we’re mostly going to foam now,” Preston says. “Technology in foam has advanced so much it does really help separate the fumes from the ignition source.”

Foam is carried on each of the department’s fire trucks.

Advanced technology is used in other areas including monitoring equipment, thermal imaging cameras and the trucks themselves.

Fire training is also more technical.

When Preston started his career 18 years ago, “we were taught you put the wet stuff on the red stuff,” he smiled. “That was Firefighter 101.”

“Now it’s more, we gotta look at what the smoke’s doing, what we’re going into, what the building is telling us, and knowing what kind of equipment we bring.”

The term firefighter is misleading, contends Hagans, who has more than 20 years experience. “We do so much more than fight fire.”

Hays firefighters spend more than 300 hours a year training.

In partnership with the Ellis County Fire Department, they learn specialized rescue techniques for situations including high buildings and trench and grain bin collapses.

The FAA mandates training at the Hays Regional Airport. HFD recently participated in a drill assessing emergency response to an airplane crash at the airport.

Fire inspections of buildings are conducted year-round as well as fire prevention education.

All Hays firefighters are also EMTs. The on-duty shift responds to calls with Ellis County Emergency Medical Services.

Another tribute will be made to Arnhold and Tourtillotte when a street sign is soon erected at the entrance of the new Hays Regional Fire/Rescue Training Facility in south Hays. A classroom is currently under construction.

Hays Fire Department personnel Lisa Beilman, Allison Friesen, and Ryan Hagans, along with City Attorney John Bird contributed information and research to this story. 

CORRECTION at 8:20 a.m. Nov. 18, 2019: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated this fire caused the only civilian deaths in Hays. Three Hays residents died in a house fire in 1997, according to information in the Hays Daily News.  Hays Post regrets the error.

 

UPDATE: ‘I ain’t homeless no more’; community rallies in support of man in need

By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

The city of Hays says it’s doing everything it can to address a zoning issue involving a homeless man illegally living behind Wolf Furniture Galleries, 4213 Vine.

An Oct. 30 notification letter from Planning, Inspection, Enforcement Superintendent Curtis Deines to owner Preston Wolf declared that Arnold’s shelter had to be gone from the Wolf property by Friday.

Hays city commissioners brought up the issue at the end of their meeting Thursday night.

Eber Phelps said the Hays Police Department “does not go out and harass anybody and run them off.”

“That’s been a rumor going around that police have been hard on people out there and that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said. “Actually, they go out there (near Walmart) and tell them all the assistance that’s available (locally).”

He specifically mentioned the Ellis County Ministerial Alliance and First Call for Help.

Phelps said he’s talked previously to Police Chief Don Scheibler about the issue of people panhandling in the Walmart shopping area.

“He said there’s three categories. People that have broken down on the highway and don’t have a way to get the money for a new transmission or whatever, so their only avenue is to possibly ask for contributions to get themselves on the road. There are organizations in Hays that will contribute to that.

“The next group of people that are out there are literally homeless. A lot of them have health issues and what have you. They’re just there trying to get enough money for their next meal.

“There’s a third group Scheibler contends have a place to live, have a vehicle, and don’t want any assistance whatsoever. They just like to panhandle for money, I guess.”

City Attorney John Bird got involved after the PIE department determined the shelter created by James Arnold should not be maintained in a commercially zoned area.

“The city manger directed all the staff to back up and look at the whole situation with some compassion,” Bird said. “There isn’t anybody who is getting disenfranchised or getting kicked out of the place they are. … The city is doing everything, as far as I can tell, to address the legal problem – the zoning issue – without having the unintended consequence of having somebody ground up by the system.

“That’s not going to happen while this city manager (Toby Dougherty) is here or I’m here,” Bird added.

Bird told Hays Post Friday morning “the city will not take any action to evict Arnold or remove his structure until we know all the facts.”

According to Bird, the city first became aware of the situation when Arnold appeared in court for allegations of threatening someone with a knife.

Bird said the city is looking into pending court matters and might be able to get help for Arnold through the court system. According to Bird, the Ellis County Sheriff and county attorney’s offices normally get involved in any sort of mental health petition.

“It was never our intent to move quickly (on this),” Dougherty said to Hays Post Friday. “After the notification period is up, we’ll look again at all our options.”

Vice-Mayor Shaun Musil and Mayor Henry Schwaller both complained Thursday night about inaccurate statements made on social media regarding a Nov. 14 Hays Post news story about the situation.

“Maybe you should ask before you go on social media and complain how bad our city is, because our city is pretty darn good,” Musil said. “I really believe in this community and there ain’t a person in this town that wouldn’t help a homeless person if they had the ability to do that.”

Musil said he read on social media where people have offered the use of a camper for Arnold.

“That’s our community right there, whether he takes advantage of it. So possibly that brought out a good thing.”

Schwaller urged anyone who’s angry to get together and form a homeless coalition in Ellis County.

“Take that anger and that time it took to post those comments and solve this problem. … We have a lot of resources but not enough,” Schwaller said. “That’s what makes this community great. When we have a problem, we solve it.”

By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

A resolution to begin condemnation proceedings of  some private properties near the proposed North Vine Street Corridor Improvements was approved 4-1 by Hays city commissioners Thursday night.

Mayor Henry Schwaller voted against the resolution. He has previously expressed opposition to the proposed design.

Drafted by John Bird, city attorney, the resolution is essentially administrative and does not designate any particular property.

“City staff, and I’m not including myself in this, has been diligently negotiating with land owners and with quite a bit of success,” Bird told the commission.

“But we can’t count on all  of them having been signed up by the deadline imposed by our grant from the federal government calling for this project to be underway.”

Since May, WSP Engineers has been developing design plans for the construction of improvements to North Vine between 32nd and 41st Streets to include four traffic roundabouts.

Appraisals and compensation estimates were prepared. On September 26 the city commission authorized making offers to adjacent properties for the necessary easements and rights of way to construct the project.

According to Bird, the resolution authorizes the use of eminent domain and calls for the city manager and city staff to cause legal descriptions of the properties to be prepared.

“We’ve been working on those so we know we can do that quickly.”

Final action on any actual eminent domain would occur at the Nov. 26 commission meeting, although it will be reviewed first at the Nov. 21 work session.

“We hope we can come back to you and tell you it won’t be necessary at all,” Bird said, “but I don’t want you to be overly optimistic on that. We just don’t know until we’re done talking to various landowners.”

John Braun, city project manager, told Hays Post after the meeting that approximately 70% of the property negotiations have been successful.

“I’m very optimistic we’ll be able to reach an agreement with about half of the remaining 30% ,” Braun said. “There’s 10-15% of the properties we just don’t know about.”

“In order to give the few remaining property owners time to come to an agreement before those legal descriptions are published, we will wait until Thursday’s work session to have the legal descriptions to you and to the press,” Toby Dougherty, city manager, told the commission. Agenda information is provided to commissioners on Mondays prior to Thursday meetings.

Commissioner Sandy Jacobs and Vice-Mayor Shaun Musil both said their affirmatives votes were carefully considered.

“This is a very serious thing we have to do to accomplish this project in front of us, which we got $6 million for from the federal government,” Jacobs said.

“Condemnation is not something we really want to do. It’s something we have to do to finish the job we started.”

“I don’t enjoy doing this,” agreed Musil, “but it’s something we have to do if we do want to move forward.

“I just truly believe that this is going to be good for the city of Hays way past when I’m a commissioner. That’s why I’m for it.”

Musil also noted he’d read online social media comments that said the city was trying to put one local business in the corridor out of business.

“That couldn’t be further from the truth. Actually, one business, I believe, is actually going to gain space with the project the way it’s laid out,” Musil said.

“Me being a small business owner, that’d be the last thing I’d want to do is put somebody out of business.”

Musil is the owner of Paisley Pear Wine Bar, Bistro and Market in downtown Hays.

By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

A development group with plans to build a hotel north of Interstate 70 in Hays has a Dec. 12 public hearing date regarding creation of the Saffron West 43rd Community Improvement District.

Saffron Hospitality LLC has submitted a petition to create the CID, which was reviewed by the Hays City Commission during its work session Thursday.

A four-story, 42,000-square-foot Avid-IHG (Intercontinental/Holiday Inn) full-service hotel would be built on 2.1 acres south of Walmart at 208 W. 43rd.

With 79 rooms, “it’s a moderate-to-low (cost) extended-stay hotel,” Mayor Henry Schwaller said of the Avid brand. “It’s very clean, very sleek.

“It’s a welcome addition,” he added. “We don’t have anything quite like it.”

The estimated project cost is $7,046,870.

“The developer requests a 2 percent CID sales tax on the project site to fund certain project expenditures on a pay-as-you-go basis,” explained Kim Rupp, finance director.

The project’s annual taxable sales would be about $1.2 million, the developer has estimated, from which approximately $480,000 would be generated over the 20-year term of the CID.

“To be clear, these are not sales taxes that already exist. They are an additional sales tax on retail sales at the defined property,” Rupp added. “Basically, it’s something the landowner or the developer wishes to impose on themselves to help reimburse for items.”

Total CID eligible costs of the proposed project are $5,199.133.

If approved, the total sales tax within the new CID would be 10.25 percent, excluding the city’s transient guest tax.

Construction would begin immediately with a projected finish in December 2020.

If the CID is not approved, the developer has declared the project cannot go forward, according to Rupp.

Information submitted to Grow Hays and the city of Hays lists Srujan Vusi as manager of Saffron Hospitality, 3404 Vine.

The city commission has previously authorized CIDs for the Hilton Garden Inn, currently under construction west of Walmart; TownePlace Suites, 4001 General Hays; and Holiday Inn Express, 4650 Roth. All four hotels are north of I-70.

In other business, commissioners heard information about construction of a classroom in the Hays Fire Department’s new fire/rescue training facility south of the water reclamation and reuse facility.

The joint project will involve student designers and builders from Fort Hays State University as well as NCK Tech students who will plumb and install electricity for the building. Students from both colleges were in the audience and were thanked by the commission for their involvement.

The fire department will solicit bids for the purchase and installation of the HVAC system.

The commission approved moving forward with the classroom. Cost estimates are $45,000 to be funded from capital projects.

A 30-minute executive session was called at the end of the meeting to discuss property acquisition. No action was taken.

By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Voters in Hays were lined up and awaiting the opening of polling locations just before 7 a.m. Tuesday.

Balloting is underway statewide for city and school board elections.

Ellis County is using new voting equipment for the first time. It was first available to advance voters at the Ellis County Administrative Center.

In April, the Ellis County Commission approved the purchase from Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb.

Voters are seeing the return of paper ballots, now marked with a standard black ink pen. Previously, the entire balloting process was done electronically using touchscreen machines.

Once a voter is identified at their polling location check-in, they get a paper ballot specific to their ward and precinct.

Voters then sit down at a table with privacy sleeves and mark their ballot by completely filling in ovals with the provided pen.

Once people are finished voting, they feed their ballot into a scanner which tabulates each ballot and then drops it into secure bins.

“This machine will read the ballot any of the four ways you can put it in there. It’ll go and it’ll count them,” explained Tom McClelland, a poll worker at the Hays Recreation Center. “From there, it drops into a basket on the bottom, under lock and key. If there’s ever any problem, with the votes like there was previously, they can always go back and open these boxes and count every one of them by hand.”

HRC poll worker Pat Lang said this morning she had no complaints from voters about the equipment change.

“It’s going fast here and it should be faster tonight when the polls close,” Lang said.

Each polling location has a designated runner who will take the printed ballot scanner information to the county administrative center in Hays just after 7 p.m. to be compiled. According to Lang, each polling location previously packed up the equipment and brought it and the ballots to the center at the same time. “It’s gonna be faster results,” she predicted.

The new machines allow Ellis County to comply with Kansas law requiring every county to complete an election audit.

In Ellis County there are four positions open on each of the school boards in Hays, Ellis and Victoria. Three seats are open on both the Hays city commission and Ellis city council as well as Ellis mayor and treasurer. All Kansans are voting on a constitutional amendment question regarding the census.

Five candidates are running for the three Hays city commission seats – Michael Berges, Ron Mellick, Mason Ruder, Ryan Rymer, and Henry Schwaller IV. The top two vote-getters will each serve a four-year term while the third highest vote-getter will serve two years.

There are nine people running for the four open positions on Hays USD 489 – Paul Adams, Cole Engel, Alex Herman, Lori Ann Hertel, Jessica Ann Berg Moffitt, Craig Pallister, Allen Park, Luke Oborny, and Tammy Wellbrock.

Polls close at 7 p.m.

Check Hays Post and Eagle Radio for election results and candidate reactions.