Ellis County was established by an act of the state legislature on February 16, 1873,[1] 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.

[1] Independent county government was established in October 1867, by proclamation of Governor Samuel J. Crawford in response to a petition.

[1] 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.

[1] It gained a general supply store, Bloomfield, Moses & Co, the following month, and a hotel run by Joseph Perry.

[8] Stories of the time recorded them as not becoming agriculturalists, as Grant had hoped, but mainly indulging in aristocratic pursuits whilst living off family remittances, including hunting the local wildlife.

[8] Another story recounts them placing a dam across Big Creek to make a lake between Victoria and Hays which they then sailed across in a steamboat until the dam was broken by a flood; although at the time of the Ellis County centennial in the 1970s, one local resident expressed doubts at the historical veracity of this tale, considering the geography of Big Creek in that area.

[9][10] The Russification policies begun in 1871 by Alexander II, and especially the January 13, 1874 reversal of the original decree that had exempted them from conscription into the Russian military when they had settled in Russia in the first place, prompted them to look to the United States and elsewhere.

[14] Initially deterred from homesteading by the US$5 (equivalent to $28.31 in 2023) per acre price of land in North Topeka, they were escorted on three tours of Ellis County by A. Roedelheiner of the Kansas Pacific.

[14] This Ellis land was cheaper at US$2.5 (equivalent to $71.53 in 2023) per acre, and so on February 21, 1876 fourteen German families came to Hays and from there moved to Liebenthal in Rush County.

[15] Three families from Katherinenstadt in Russia also came to Hays on March 1, 1876 and, whilst temporarily renting accommodation therein, built their homes in Catherine to which they moved on April 8.

[15] Another large wave of immigrants left Russia in June 1876, and some of them arrived in Hays on July 26, 1876 and in Catherine the next day.

[18] Their original plan had been to move from Liebenthal to another site in Rush, but the place that they had chosen was school land that they could not afford, meaning that they could not deed enough of it to the community to erect their church, whilst at the same time land for a church had been deeded in Liebenthal.

[18] In recrimination, the Rush County settlers moved to Ellis, joining the direct immigrant party at Schoenchen in April and May 1877.

[20] Another party, having had to cover the Russian emigration fees through deceit, claiming that two of their number had died to officials who only dealt with the two people who left the train, since the party collectively had not enough money for all even though they had pooled their funds, arrived in Herzog and Munjor and was the last large wave of Volga German immigrants to Ellis.

[21] The largest of the Volga German settlements was Herzog, having roughly 1700 people (measured from church congregation size as accounted in the Victoria Chronicle) in 1895, with Pfeifer and Schoenchen coming fourth and fifth.

[23][1] The river banks had a lot of limestone, and around Hays City in the 19th century there were great quantities of clay.

Used primarily for general aviation, it hosts one commercial airline, United Express, which offers daily jet service to Denver, Colorado.

[36] In 1886, there were twelve post offices in the county: Catharine, Easdale, Ellis, Hays City, Martin, Mendota, Munjor, Palatine, Stockrange, Turkville, Victoria, and Walker.

[35] † means a community is designated a Census-Designated Place (CDP) by the United States Census Bureau.

In the 19th and early 20th century there were various communities that no longer exist today: Ellis County is divided into nine townships.

The cities of Ellis and Hays are considered governmentally independent and are excluded from the census figures for the townships.