Ellis is a city in Ellis County, Kansas, United States.
History
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. Ellis incorporated as a city in January 1888.
Geography
Ellis is located at (38.936211, -99.559269), at an elevation of 2,120 feet (646 m). It is approximately northwest of Wichita and west of Kansas City.
Ellis lies on the western edge of the Smoky Hills region of the Great Plains. Big Creek, a tributary of the Smoky Hill River, runs east through the city and has been dammed to form a long, narrow reservoir, Big Creek Lake.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land.
Climate
On average in Ellis, January is the coolest month, and July is both the warmest month and the wettest month. The hottest temperature recorded in Ellis was 110 °F (43 °C) in 2003; the coldest temperature recorded was -24 °F (-31 °C) in 1989.