The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Willis had its start as a station on the Missouri Pacific Railroad. A post office opened in Willis in 1882 and remained in operation until it was discontinued in 1960.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Be one of the first
Start Willis’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Willis’s history is told.
0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🗓️Date a photo1 archive item has no date+2 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people close to Willis
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By decade
Willis, decade by decade
Before
2000
2000
No old photos in the archives yetWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
📷 Add from your album![Johnson, W.O., June 10, 1901 (Willis State Bank, Willis, Kansas) [ANS Chapman brothers business correspondence]](https://images.towntapestry.org/story/6093/0059825ed310eb2241b1-s.jpg)
Today1 photo
National Register of Historic Places
Nothing in Willis is on the National Register yet
That’s true of most small towns. It doesn’t mean Willis has no history, only that no one has written up a nomination. The closest listed place is Fete Apartments in Horton, 4.5 miles away.
Willis and the nearest listed places
Dashed line = Willis. Tap a dot.
How a place gets listed
1Talk to the stateEvery nomination goes through the State Historic Preservation Office. Owners, towns and historical societies can start one.
2Try a local or state list firstMany states keep their own register with a shorter form, a common first step for old barns, halls and schoolhouses.
3Write it upA nomination covers the history, photos and a map. Fete Apartments’s page links to a real one.
Know an old place in Willis?A mill, a schoolhouse, a cellar hole, a church: add a photo of it to Willis’s story, or a memory of it.
📷 Add a photo of an old placeNational Park Service, National Register of Historic Places · photos from Wikimedia Commons
Then & now
When neighbors add old photos, retakes from the same spot appear here side by side.
Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (2). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.