Ellis’s history is
mostly unwritten
The public archives hold only 2 old photos of Ellis. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗The Kansas Pacific Railway built a water station at the site of present-day Ellis in 1867 and then purchased the site under the Homestead Act. Three years later, in 1870, the U.S. Post Office Department opened a post office at Ellis, marking the town's foundation. Kansas Pacific laid out the town in 1873, establishing a depot, a hotel, and a few shops. That same year, settlers from Syracuse, New York, and later from Louisville, Kentucky, arrived to work for the railroad. The first church opened in Ellis in 1873, the first school in 1874. Starting in 1875 and for the rest of the 1870s, Ellis was a cowtown, serving as a shipping point for cattle herds from the south. Bukovina Germans began settling in the area in 1886. Ellis incorporated as a city in January 1888.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowStart Ellis’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Ellis’s history is told.
1 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🗓️Date a photo1 archive item has no date+2 🔁Retake an old viewOn President Roosevelt's journey …, 1903: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Ellis, decade by decade
1990s
unknown1 item
4 historic places in Ellis
4 places in Ellis are on the National Register of Historic Places, the country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
Where they are
When they were listed
Listed 1972Walter P. Chrysler House
Listed 2000Ellis Congregational Church
Listed 2002Merchants Bank of Ellis
Listed 2007Memorial City HallThen & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as On President Roosevelt's journey through the west - splendid reception at Ellis, Kansas (1903) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (4), the Library of Congress (1) and the National Register (1). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.