Hog Back was the local name for the high limestone and chalk ridge that runs from just west of old Fort Hays to Ellis.

[12][13][14][15] The earliest studied human occupation of the Yocemento location is a settlement interpreted as the rarely preserved Early Ceramic (c. 400–1100 CE) Keith phase of the Woodland culture.

Dating to about 1000 CE, it is interpreted as a butchering and tool working site: Animal bones include bison, deer, and small mammals.

The on-site manufacture of stone tools included heat treatment of quartzite, flint, silicified Smoky Hill Chalk, and silcrete.

[21] In 1867, construction of the Kansas Pacific Railway west of Junction City precipitated conflict with the tribes that claimed this region of the High Plains as buffalo hunting grounds.

[25] The rapid construction of track to Salina and up through the Smoky Hills, followed by the letting of contracts to extend railroad out on to the High Plains 100 miles (160 km) west of Ellsworth to Park's Fort,[26][27] was perceived as a violation of Cheyenne and Arapaho territory.

[28] From July through August, Dog Soldiers attacked workers and settlers along the line of construction, including near Salina, Bunker Hill, and Wilson.

[32] This situation was the context of the October 1867 photographs of the Yocemento location made by Alexander Gardner; all construction west of his pictures had halted due to the conflict, but was about to resume: The late-August and September battles on the Saline River, Solomon Forks, and tributaries of the Republican River ended the conflict west of the end of line for 1867.

However, as fertile as the valley was, the Hog Back ridge of limestone and chalk between the two settlements was considered unsuitable for wheat farming and was initially rejected by immigrant settlers.

The original interest was in the mapping and study of Cretaceous fossils, this general area of the state becoming a part of the broader focus of the Bone Wars.

At the time, Big Creek was undercutting the face the bluff, exposing 60 feet (18 m) of "Benton Shale" normally covered by grass on other slopes.

Yost saw that with no capital investment ample water was to be found in the creek and the transcontinental railroad passing through the site could bring in fuel and ship out cement as far as either coast without freight transfer.

Yost also observed that they could leverage the largest industry in western Kansas by founding an adjoining town and selling the lots.

[55][62] Cement produced in Yocemento was used to build the Kansas City Union Station (then second-largest in the country) and to pave the Denver Tramway.

[55] Denied affordable coal, the plains cement mills were able to make use of oil,[66] newly produced in eastern Kansas and Oklahoma.

[68] This complaint was joined by several other cement manufactures in the open plains of Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Montana, Texas, and Utah.

[54] Yocemento is the location of a grain elevator and bulk fertilizer and chemical warehouse operated by Midland Marketing farmer's cooperative.

Fortunately for the county and state, later exploration by others proved Haworth correct; his one well had been drilled right between two of the largest producing oil pools in Kansas.

Slumping is characteristic on bluffs of the Fort Hays Escarpment, where the deep Carlile Shale weathers away but is unable to support high, steep slopes.

[75][76] As in the Benecke photograph of the treeless Hog Back, this slump formed a narrow terrain between the deep banks of Big Creek and the steep slope of the bluff.

The blocks of the slump obstructed wagon traffic west from Fort Hays, which found routes over the Hog Back further south.

[81] The portion of original creek channel at the base of the bluff remains, water still occasionally ponding where Benecke's sportsmen fished in 1873.

[3][91] The town's newspaper, Yocemento Star, was edited by Frank Motz, then a young man,[55] later founder of the Hays Daily News.