Seth Hays, the first white settler in Council Grove, built the house in 1867.

[2] A Missouri native, Hays originally moved to Council Grove to start a trading post for Boone & Hamilton; he eventually owned the trading post himself, and he also started a local newspaper and the town's first bank.

While living in Missouri, Hays enslaved a woman named Sarah Taylor, also known as Aunt Sallie.

After Kansas became a state and abolished slavery in 1861, she stayed with Hays as a servant, and she lived in the house's basement.

This article about a property in Kansas on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub.