Editing Ellis, Kansas (section)

== History ==
The [[Kansas Pacific Railway]] built a [[Water stop|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 [[United States Post Office Department|U.S. Post Office Department]] opened a [[post office]] at Ellis, marking the town's foundation.<ref name=City>{{cite web | title = Welcome to...Ellis, Kansas | publisher = City of Ellis | url = http://www.ellis.ks.us/ | access-date = 2010-02-06}}</ref> Kansas Pacific laid out the town in 1873, establishing a depot, a hotel, and a few shops.<ref name=Blackmar>{{Citation | contribution = Ellis | title = Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. | editor-last = Blackmar | editor-first = Frank W. | volume = 1 | pages = 577–578 | place = [[Chicago]] | publisher = Standard | year = 1912 | contribution-url = http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1912/e/ellis.html | access-date = 2010-02-06 | archive-date = December 2, 2007 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071202081030/http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1912/e/ellis.html | url-status = dead }}</ref> That same year, settlers from [[Syracuse, New York]], and later from [[Louisville, Kentucky]], arrived to work for the railroad.<ref>{{cite web | title = Ellis County, Kansas - City of Ellis | work = The KSGenWeb Project | url = http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/ellis/ellis.html | access-date = 2010-02-06 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110604062417/http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/ellis/ellis.html | archive-date = 2011-06-04 | url-status = dead }}</ref> 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 [[American frontier#Cowtowns|cowtown]], serving as a shipping point for cattle herds from the south.<ref name=City/> [[Bukovina Germans]] began settling in the area in 1886.<ref>{{cite web | title = Homesteading in Ellis County - Ellis | work = Kansas Heritage Project | publisher = [[Fort Hays State University]] | url = http://www.fhsu.edu/library/ksheritage/Ellis/ | access-date = 2010-02-06 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100602143800/https://www.fhsu.edu/library/ksheritage/Ellis/ | archive-date = 2010-06-02 | url-status = dead }}</ref> Ellis [[municipal corporation|incorporated]] as a city in January 1888.<ref name=City/>

Long ago, Ellis (as well as Hays) was once a [[sundown town]], where African Americans were not welcome after dark.<ref>{{cite interview|first=Angela|last=Bates|interviewer=[[Frank Stasio]]|title=Black History Month: Postcard from Kansas|work=[[Talk of the Nation]]|publisher=NPR|location=Washington, D.C.|date=February 17, 2005|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4503065|quote=Ellis ... did have the Jim Crow laws that actually existed in the West, also. They did have what was called sundown laws.}}</ref>