Who owns the Hennessey Cow Palace?

That was Hennessey Vice Mayor Harold Shaw’s question - and agenda item - at the town board’s Thursday, Sept. 14, meeting.

The answer? It’s Kingfisher County District 2. Shaw said “some county people” asked if the town had any ownership.

No, the town doesn’t own that building, although it did supply free water and sewer services until a few years ago, the Times & Free Press reporter learned.

Private Owners

A county official in 1981 apparently allowed a private group, known only as the Hennessey Dover Community Building board, to have that structure erected.

That’s according to folklore back in the 1980s and the structure was soon nicknamed “The Cow Palace.”

Since then the county has paid for the insurance and utility bills on the 10,800 square-foot structure (60 feet by 180 feet), but the building board was responsible for the upkeep on it, said current District 2 Commissioner Ray Alan Shimanek.

“That property wasn’t kept up over the years by that (building) board, or their caretaker, and now there’s mold in the building,” said Shimanek in a phone interview last Monday.

He added, “It’s not in any condition for people to have events in there, much less have meals in there… We’re just using part of it for storage.”

No New County Barn

At last week’s town meeting, Shaw said he thought the county wanted to make sure the town has no standing in the matter, so they could tear it down and build a new county barn there.

Shimanek nixed that notion and said he has “no plans for a new county barn there.”

The Cow Palace is located two blocks west of the Main Street stoplight on the northwest corner of Oklahoma Avenue and North Arapaho Street.

That’s next door to (and just north of) the District 2 county barn.

The ownership of the building by the town could have come up because the town does own the rodeo grounds immediately south of the county barn.

About the 52-year-old Hennessey Cow Palace The Hennessey Dover Community Building (later nicknamed The Cow Palace) was built in February 1981 by Hennessey and Dover businesses and supporters of school ag programs.

The Hennessey-Dover Stock Show was held there that February.

The Hennessey Roundup Club had a benefit dance there in April 1981 and donated $657 to the building board.

A search through Hennessey newspaper records online through the town’s public library did not produce the names of those Cow Palace board members. In addition to many local stock shows, ag booster calf fries and auctions and rodeo dances, The Cow Palace also hosted FFA awards banquets for many years.

It has also seen many birthday and quinceañera celebrations, graduation and anniversary parties, garage sales/fundraisers for individuals/cancer research and Hennessey United (formerly Hennessey 2019) held 2000-13 Heritage Festivals there.

United’s 2011 Hometown Hootenanny ice cream and watermelon feed was held there before the event was moved to the Ortman Auditorium in the public library and discontinued in 2018.