Ellis, an incorporated city of the third class, the second largest in Ellis county, is located on the Union Pacific R. R. at the crossing of Big creek, 14 miles west of Hays, the county seat. The town was laid out in 1873 by the Kansas Pacific (now the Union Pacific) Railroad company, which established a roundhouse and machine shops there and erected a two-story stone building for a depot and hotel combined. Thomas Daily was the first merchant. Other early merchants were Nichols Bros., Eli Sheldon, Reading & Bowen and G. F. Lee. For a time in 1877-78 Ellis was the center of a large cattle trade, and during that period, like all towns where the cattle trade centered, it had the reputation of being a "tough place." Law-abiding people were glad when the trade moved elsewhere. In 1882 a two-story stone school house was built, the old frame building being sold to the Congregationalists who converted it into a church, the first in the town. In 1910 there were four church edifices in the city.

The Ellis of the present day has 2 banks, 4 grain elevators, the railroad repair shops, a weekly newspaper (the Review-Headlight), good hotels, a modern public school building, several well appointed mercantile establishments, an international money order postoffice, etc., and in 1910 reported a population of 1,404, a gain of 472 during the preceding decade.