Yep... this is where it all happened. The livestock auction center here in Hays, also known as the "Sale Barn". My dad was the yard foreman here for about 5 years or so. He took care of the grounds and was basically in charge of "sale" day, which was every wednesday. He loaded and unloaded cattle, fed animals, fixed fence, painted the barn, supervised the help on sale day, you name it... he did it! My dad was a hero - we loved following him around everywhere. Below is a photo of the front of the Sale Barn. It was a totally cool place and as kids, my brother and I spent lots of time in there! When we moved there Jarrod was 3 and I was 7 - we were best buddies.
If you wanna see the photos larger - just click on 'em!
My mom cleaned the building, so I got to help. Oh yay! I actually liked it though unless she made me clean the men's restroom. GROSS! Those guys were pigs and I nearly lost my lunch every time I had to clean urinals, though it was fun to put in a new urinal cake and flush a few dozen times to watch all the bubbles come up. When you walk in the front of this building you are in the lobby. To the right would be the offices where you pay for purchases or consign your animals that you wanna sell. To the left was the cafe. They had good, greasy food and lots of pop and candy! It was a child's dream, as the owner said we could have all the pop and candy we wanted for FREE (mom made us be sensible though). Les was a nice guy. Then if you go straight ahead... you walk up some steps and that's where the action was. The auction arena and the auction box. My brother and I would pretend that we were auctioneers and would turn on the microphone and yell in there while the other one of us was down on the floor in the ring yelling "Yep... yep!" as if we were taking bids. ha ha. What a hoot. It was great fun. Once my brother was the auctioneer and being a little guy he was pretty darn cute. He had his mouth right up to the microphone "humuhnuh, humuhnuh, humuhnuh... hep!" , then he says, "SOLD MY MOM, FOR TWO DOLLARS!" Whoa, that was the deal of the century, I didn't know mom was so "cheap". ha ha.
We didn't actually LIVE at the sale barn, we lived in a double wide trailer up on the hill, (to the left in the photo) you can see from the photo the short distance between our home and the auction barn. The spot where our house once stood is now a Veterinary Clinic. Weird! When I look at that building, I still see my white house with the evergreens out front. We'd look out the window and yell, "Dad... there's a truck coming in!" He'd have to get his boots and coat on and head out to help unload all hours of the day. Sometimes trucks came in really late at night. They would have "nut fries" and different parties there that kids weren't invited to and once Mom told me I should stay at the house and babysit Jarrod, but I didn't want to... so he informed mom that he would babysit ME! Um, yeah, ok. :) I was probably too young to be left alone, but they were right down the hill if we needed them. Pretty crazy stuff.
What you see here is a little closer view of where our house would have been. We played lots of catch, baseball and tag on this lot. There used to be a huge sign here that had the name of the business and said "Action by Auction - Sale every Wednesday. " Of course the sign was home base.
All of this sand was our playground. Where all the fencing and chutes are there by the building is where our garage and driveway was. My brother learned to ride a bike down that hill, we took cart and pony rides there with our white pony, Marty, we rode our little Honda mini trail - mini bike and walked and played with our goat, Billy. On that very driveway, my mom ran over our cat, Tom - who actually turned out to be female and gave birth to a litter of kittens. ha ha.
The steel walk way you see there leading from the dock to the inside of the barn is what was referred to as the "catwalk". Not sure why... but you can see how playing pirates would be fun on that! It was our ship. We would find ear tags for the cattle in the dock house and drop them down the posts and listen to them drop all the way down - that was our admit ticket onto the "ship". My cousins, Troy and Kim would come over for a visit and then we had 4 to play. She was always Captain Cook and I was Captain Hook. Creepy... but dang that was a blast!
This is the dock where drivers would unload their livestock and check it in. The dock house was a warm, dry place for the hands to do their paperwork, etc. but as kids, we thought it was for our good pleasure. Once my cousin Kim and I were playing in there and she stood on a bucket of tar to get some ear tags off the shelf and knocked that tar bucket over. OOPS! We got it on our matching windbreakers. She put hers in the burn barrel so her mom wouldn't find it and I hid mine in the closet. ha ha. Oh, the logic of a child. This is also the dock where we made our newspaper debut. Kim was spending the day with us and it was wednesday so it was sale day... but it was raining so if we were going to run all around checking out the excitement, we would have to use an umbrella. Well my brother, the third amigo, was with us and we were standing on the dock in the rain, all 3 of us under the umbrella - my brother blew a big bubble with his bubble gum and coincidentally someone from the local newspaper got a snapshot of that. We made the front page, "Bubbles in the rain". So cute. I think my mom still has that clipping in the seat of her sewing cabinet. Fun times. One of our favorite things is that the cooks from the cafe would send food out to the docks for the guys, and there would usually be a candybar or 2 left over after sale day. If we'd go there thursday morning, it was like checking the Easter Basket... "LOOK... THERE'S CANDY BARS!!!!" :)
This spot is nothing but gravel now, but it used to be where they stacked the hay bales and piled the dead animals that were waiting for the rendering truck to come and pick them up. I know... gross! But it was kinda fun to see the bloated cows, etc. You know how curious kids can be! Climbing the bales was a great time! I did have a hay allergy though, and would usually return home broke out in hives. The best thing about those bales is that the momma kitties would usually hide there babies in there so we could sit on the bales and hold kittens. Loved it! Kinda made me feel sad to drive by there and see that it was just sand. But I can still envision it just as it was in the 70's. :)
I took these photos on Monday and there were actually already cattle there for the upcoming sale. This one gave me a "whatchyou lookin' at?" expression so I snapped a photo. Kinda cute isn't he?
There used to be a vet building to the east of here... but I think they tore it down when they replaced our house with a Veterinary Clinic. We liked to go in there and pretend to be animal doctors, especially if there was a sick animal in there. This is the dock house and loading chute on the south side. My brother and I would take turns in that chute. We'd crank it up and let it go and that was the "elevator" game. ha ha. We also liked to walk that little plank alongside the chute and help dad load hogs by zapping them with the "hot shot" if they weren't moving. Dang... could life get any sweeter for a kid?
This run you see here is where my horse Marty dragged me for about 25 feet in the mud and muck because he took off when I still had one foot in the stirrup trying to get on the saddle. Grr. It shredded my new orange pants! :) After that I was a little bit afraid of him, but dad made me get back on and ride, then I was ok.
The place is in horrible shape. My dad would have never allowed it to look like this! Rusty fence, piles of scrap, pieces of the building falling off. He was meticulous about keeping the grounds and facility up. They were lucky to have him as the foreman, I'm pretty sure he was underpaid for all the work he did.
My best memories from childhood are from this place. Glorious isn't it? Wow... I wish you could see this playground through the eyes of a child, it was fabulous!
