Archives West Finding Aid

Henry Gurley Hay, Sr. was born October 31, 1847, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and educated at Vincennes University and Eastman Commercial College from which he graduated in 1866. He came to Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1870 when he was appointed a deputy U.S. surveyor. In 1874 he married Ella O. Bullock. Their children were Henry G. Hay, Jr. and Mildred Hay Foster Gibbs. Ella Bullock Hay died November 6, 1895, and Henry Sr. married Mary A. Seaboldt in 1903. Mary Seabolt Hay died in 1907.

In 1871 Henry Hay formed a sheep ranch, the Valley Ranch on Lone Tree Creek, Laramie County, in partnership with John B. Thomas. He formed a partnership with I.C. Whipple in 1875 to run a grocery business, and from 1881 to 1893 he was engaged in the range cattle business with I.C. Whipple. Hay, J.M. Carey, and Thomas Sturgis organized the Stock Growers National Bank in 1881, with Hay acting as cashier. Hay succeeded to the presidency of the bank on the death of Andrew Gilchrist during the financial panic of 1893. The Stock Growers Bank was one of the few Cheyenne banks to weather the panic of 1893. He was a member of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and a charter member of the Cheyenne Club.

Hay was a Republican, a member of the Wyoming State Constitutional Convention, and a commissioner from Wyoming to the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. He served as State Treasurer from 1895 to 1898 and was elected to the office again in 1903 but resigned to take the position of assistant treasurer of United States Steel Corporation in 1904. He died August 18, 1919, at Gary, Indiana.

Henry G. Hay, Jr. (1876-1959) married Bessie Robins on October 12, 1897. Their children were Henry G. Hay III and Helen Hay Pierrot. Henry Jr. moved to Gary, Indiana, in 1908 and organized the Gary State Bank, serving as its first president. He was treasurer of Gary public schools, city comptroller and superintendent of parks. He became Gary's sixth mayor, in 1929, after the resignation of Mayor Floyd E. Williams.

Henry G. Hay III (1900-1991) and his sister, Helen, were born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, but moved with their parents to Gary, Indiana, in 1906. During 1922 and 1923 Henry III made an extensive tour of Europe. In 1942 he was drafted into the army. His initial training occurred at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. From there he went to Officer's Training Camp at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, and he was then posted back to Ft. Bragg, as a lieutenant, for the duration of the war. He was married to Anne Curran on February 12, 1945, while still in the army. Near the end of the same year, he became a courier for the Classified Message Center of the Office of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington, D.C. After the war he and Anne moved to Denver, where Henry III engaged in the real estate business. They remained in the Denver area for the rest of their lives.