Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Ellis, KS

Ellis is a city in western Ellis County, Kansas, located on Interstate 70 about 13 miles west-northwest of Hays, the county seat.

Ellis began in 1867 as a water station on the Kansas Pacific Railway; a post office opened in 1870, marking the town's founding, and the railroad laid out the townsite with a depot, hotel and shops in 1873.

From 1875 through the rest of the 1870s, Ellis was a cow town, serving as a shipping point where cattle herds driven up from the south were loaded onto trains.

Ellis incorporated as a city in January 1888, and Bukovina German settlers who began arriving in 1886 left a lasting German imprint — Ellis County was recognized in 2003 as the official German Capital of Kansas.

Ellis is the boyhood home of Walter P. Chrysler, founder of the Chrysler Corporation, who grew up in town and at age 17 began his career as a machinist's apprentice in the railroad roundhouse; his boyhood home is now a museum.

The Ellis Railroad Museum, founded in 1994, displays railroad memorabilia, a 5,000-square-foot model train exhibit, and the BK&E miniature railroad that carries riders on a one-mile loop track.

The 2020 census counted 1,958 people in Ellis in 845 households, down considerably from the city's peak of 2,649 residents in 1950.

Big Creek runs through Ellis and is dammed in town to form the long, narrow Big Creek Lake.

Ellis students attend Ellis USD 388's Washington Grade School and Ellis High School, whose Railroaders teams have won state championships in boys track and field (1985), girls track and field (2009) and speech (2016-2018).

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Salina also operates St. Mary Grade School in Ellis, reflecting the town's deep German Catholic roots.