Эллис қаласы: тарихы мен географиясы

City in Ellis County, Kansas

Ellis is a city in Ellis County, Kansas, United States.

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.

Ellis is located at (38.936211, 99.559269), at an elevation of 2,120 feet (646 m). It is approximately 146 mile (235 km) northwest of Wichita and 260 mile (418 km) 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 1.64 square miles (4 km2), all land.

Interstate 70 and U. S. Route 40 run concurrently east west immediately north of Ellis. Kansas Highway 247 (K 247) runs north south from I 70 to 3rd Street in northern Ellis.

The city government's Public Works department is responsible for sanitation, sewer maintenance, and water provision and distribution. Midwest Energy, Inc. provides electricity to local residents. Eagle Communications and Golden Belt Telephone provide landline telephone service and offer cable television. Most residents use natural gas for heating fuel; service is provided by Midwest Energy, Inc.

Ellis is in the Wichita Hutchinson, Kansas television market.

Ellis is the site of Walter P. Chrysler Boyhood Home and Museum. Chrysler, founder of the Chrysler Corporation, grew up in Ellis. When he was 17, he began his career working in the railroad roundhouse, where he became a machinist's apprentice and developed his expertise for metal working and machinery. In the summer of 1993, the Chrysler Corporation recognized Chrysler's hometown by sponsoring a parade and Chrysler festival, attended by several members of the Chrysler family. A prototype Dodge Viper was loaned to the museum for one year. Founded in 1994, the Ellis Railroad Museum features items and photographs from Ellis's railroading past. A model train exhibit is also on display. Outside the museum is a miniature railroad that runs on a one mile (1.6 km) loop track, called the BK&E Railroad. This stands for the "Buddy King and Ellis Railroad", named for its primary donor the late Francis "Buddy" King, a former mayor of Ellis who died in office in 1994.