Ellis County, Kansas: History
=== 19th century ===
In 1854, the Kansas Territory was organized, then in 1861 Kansas became the 34th U.S. state.
Ellis County was established by an act of the state legislature on February 16, 1873, which defined the original borders of the county as: Commencing where the east line of range 16 west intersects the second standard parallel, thence south to the third standard parallel, thence west to the east line of range 21 west, thence north to the second standard parallel, thence east to the place of beginning.
The first settlers had been arriving since May 1867, with Fort Fletcher (later Fort Hays) having been built in 1865.
Independent county government was established in October 1867, by proclamation of Governor Samuel J. Crawford in response to a petition.
Hays was chosen as the permanent seat by an election in April 1870.
Early settlers the Lull brothers, from Salina, had in May 1867 begun a town called Rome just north of the railroad route and on the west of Big Creek, expecting that to become the county seat.
It gained a general supply store, Bloomfield, Moses & Co, the following month, and a hotel run by Joseph Perry.
However, the Big Creek Land Company platted a competing town named Hays City on the east of Big Creek, which gained the important support of the railroad company.
Rome disappeared, with Perry's hotel and several other of its buildings being relocated to Hays City.
Ellis County was named for George Ellis, first lieutenant of the Twelfth Kansas Infantry.
The county's early newspapers were the Star-Sentinel, Hays City Times, and Ellis County Free Press published in Hays City; and the Ellis Head-Light and Ellis Review published in Ellis.
The initial wave of settlement was slow, with three colonies being established in 1872.
George Grant, a wealthy Scottish merchant, purchased 70,000 acres (28,000 ha) of land that year, and some 300 farmers from England settled there over the next two years.
Grant bought the land from the Kansas Pacific Railroad with the intention of creating a community of British aristocrats and agriculturalists in the middle of rural Kansas.
His first town was Victoria named after Queen Victoria where Victoria Manor, a two story stone structure, acted as temporary housing for the immigrants and as a transport depot for the Kansas Pacific.
Grant's sales pitch to the immigrants was that it was cheaper to buy land in Kansas at US$11 (equivalent to $295.63 in 2025) per acre (Grant himself having purchased it at US$0.88 (equivalent to $23.65 in 2025) per acre) than it was to buy land in Britain, and that Grant would till the land and seed it with imported British stock.
The first wave of young British aristocratic families set sail on April 1, 1873. …