Ellinwood
In the Fall of 1871, Arron Burlison
erected a house just east of section 31 (which is now the town
of Ellinwood, Kansas), and petitioned for a post office to be
called Ellinwood. Captain John Ellinwood was a locating engineer
for the A.T.S.F. railway and was camped on the Arkansas River
at that time. The railroad reached Ellinwood in July of 1872,
the town was platted and lots were put up for sale by the Arkansas
Valley Town Company, owner of section 31.
Railroad agent C. B. Schmidt, who has
been characterized as the ablest German immigration agent ever
to do business in the state of Kansas, earmarked Ellinwood as
a German colony. To attract the German speaking populace, Schmidt
and the A.T.S.F. distributed brochures, printed in German, in
every German-speaking community in the United States, as well
as traveling to Europe over a dozen times to recruit and usher
ships full of Germans to the United States and on to Kansas. The
first settlers were English speaking but Schmidt's efforts soon
paid off and Ellinwood was known as a German community for the
next hundred years.
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Main Street Ellinwood in 1873 Wolf
Milling Company
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German Lutheran Church
Sources
Information from Robert E. Yarmer
Various Authors. Biographical History of
Barton County, Kansas. Great Bend: Great Bend Tribune, 1912.
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