Wilson Dean Hays (Meeteetse, WY)
Wilson Dean Hays (April 5, 1874 – February 26, 1946)
Biography
- Name: Wilson Dean Hays
- Birth: Apr 5, 1874 Glenville, WV
- Death: Feb 26, 1946 Billings, MT (and buried there)
The following bio was written by a great-grandson of W.D. Hayes:
My Great-Grandfather Wilson Dean Hays, who I always heard called W.D., was born on April 5, 1874, in Glenville, West Virginia. He was well educated and provided for at great advantage. He moved to Kentucky as a young man and began making quite a name for himself as a lawyer and public speaker.
W.D. married Ora Jane Penrod on September 24, 1893, in Olive Hill, Kentucky. They couple moved to Meeteetse, Wyoming, where he started in a banking career that would carry through the remainder of his life. They were a prominent family of very high social stature. Wilson and Ora Jane had two children during their marriage, Blendine and her much younger sister, Margot, my grandmother.
Wilson studied and practiced law at State Normal in Glenville, where he edited the Kanawha City Review. When he was only 21, he was elected mayor of Kanawha. He resigned in his second term and moved to Red Lodge, Montana where he entered the banking business and general mercantile business. From there, he went to Big Horn basin in Wyoming and opened his own bank, The First National Bank of Meeteetse. In 1902 he was appointed U.S. commissioner for the district of Wyoming. He held that position until 1906, when he resigned and moved his family to Tenino, Washington to accept the post of Vice President of the State Bank of Tenino. He had interests in the Electric Lighting Plant, City water System and Telephone Exchange as well as State Bank. He sold the utilities to further his banking career and became involved in education. He was elected President of the Board of education in the Tenino District in 1910 and then in 1912 was elected as a State representative on the Republican ticket.
A lot about the times in which W.D. lived can be found in a letter he received. My mother, Merre Jayne McFate, was had the letter and, when she and my sister Meredith Carso, went on a trip in 1998 to places my mother had lived, they brought the letter into the museum. It was then printed in an issue of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center Quarterly.
The magazine article began: A secret letter of warning about an impending bank robbery by the Hole-in-the-Wall gang was delivered to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center this past November. The letter, dated June 17 , 1901 , is addressed to Dean Hays, then the cashier for the Meeteetse Bank, from a mysterious "H.R." It was written on June 17, 1901 Meeteetse, Wyoming. This letter was recently donated to the McCracken Research Library by Mrs. Merre Jayne McFate of Palo Alto, California. Mrs. McFate is the granddaughter of Dean Hays, the bank cashier to whom the letter is addressed.
The letter itself read:
To Mr. Wilson Dean Hays, Esq.
Dear Sir, It is Rumored that Meeteetse is a going to be Held up and Robbed by the Hole in the Wall gang of thieves: I wish you would notify Red Lodge that they are billed for the 23rd of June. I do not know this for a fact but I have Reason to believe it. You can use your own judgment about it and act accordingly. Hoping this may be of benefit to you.
Truly H.R.
Do not mention my name
Documenting that Dean Hays worked in the bank was done simply by checking period newspapers and finding his name, W. Dean Hays, advertised as U.S. Commissioner for filing land and water rights with his office at the bank, and as bank cashier alongside that of the directors of the bank, H.E. Cheeseman, W.T Hogg, and A.J. McDonald. Finding out who the mysterious H.R. is, however, is not quite so straightforward. Local historian Mr. Bob Edgar was aware that a Mr. Henry River ran a saloon outside of Meeteetse, at the mouth of the Wood River, that actually predated the town by nearly a decade. It is logical that as the saloon keeper Mr. River would have been in a position to hear about a planned robbery either by overhearing actual gang members or their friends.
River's saloon is now a part of Old Trail Town, having been moved to Cody, about thirty miles north, by Mr. Edgar. At the time of this writing no other persons with the initials H.R. living in the Meeteetse vicinity in 1901 have been identified. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were the most famous members oi the Hole-in-the-Wall gang, sometimes known as the Wild Bunch. They had previously attempted to rob the bank in Red Lodge, Mont. In September 1897 but were recognized and pursued before a robbery could occur.
The timing of this letter fits perfectly into the known last days of Butch Cassidy in Wyoming. The June 23 date mentioned in the letter is a mere nine days before the last robbery pulled by Butch Cassidy in North America, the July 3, 1901 holdup of the Great Northern train near Wagner, Montana. This implies that the letter discouraged the Wild Bunch from robbing the two banks by alerting townspeople to the danger beforehand, and so forced the gang to choose another target.
The Meeteetse Bank, as it was known before it changed its name to First National Bank in 1902, had been established in 1900. However, the actual building was not built until sometime in 1901 . At that time Meeteetse, founded in 1896, did not have a formal government or even a town marshal, so it is easy to see why the bank would have looked like easy pickings.
Another influence of this letter's warning is that it served to speed up the establishment of the formal town government in Meeteetse. The first town council consisted of four members and a mayor. Two of the council members were from the bank, one of whom was none other than Mr. Dean Hays.
At their first meeting on September 23, 1901 the council appointed H. S. Brown as the first town marshal and J.R. Kinney as police justice, and authorized the purchase of handcuffs and shackles. The town jail was authorized at a later meeting and built in 1902.
W.D. Hays was a prominent man that was held in high esteem. There is a photo of him seated in front of William Cody's tent that tells us quite a lot. My great- grandfather, Wilson Dean Hays, owned the bank that handled all the finances for Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley and Wild Bill Hickock. In fact, Buffalo Bill was godfather to my grandmother (Margot Hays Thomas Pekor).
They had a large home furnished with lush carpets and fine furniture in the true Victorian style. Wilson's daughters were educated and instructed in music and literature. My grandmother told me they did a lot of important entertaining and were among the social elite in their area.
Wilson Dean Hays died on February 26, 1946, in Billings, Montana, at the age of 71, and was buried there.
Bank Officer Summary
During his banking career, W. Dean Hays was involved with the following bank(s):
- First National Bank, Meeteetse, WY (Charter 6340): Cashier 1902-1903
Sources
- Findagrave.com: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/67826176/wilson-dean-hays
- Banks & Bankers Historical Database (1782-1935), https://spmc.org/bank-note-history-project