[1] Founded in 1857, the settlement was initially known as Deer Creek by Pennsylvania Dutch settlers until it was renamed after its only postmaster, Sylvester Stull.

Since the 1970s, the town has become infamous due to an apocryphal legend that claims the nearby Stull Cemetery is possessed by demonic forces.

[6] In the late 1890s, a telephone switchboard was added to the house of a Stull resident named J. E. Louk, and soon thereafter, on April 27, 1899, a post office was established in the back of the very same building.

Along with church services, the school held debates, voting for general elections, and competitions in baseball, horseshoes, sewing, and cooking.

[11][14] Christ Kraft, an inhabitant of the settlement during the 20th century, recalls that life in the small town was "quiet and easy, sometimes even boring.

[11][17] The Roaring Twenties brought preliminary discussion about constructing an interurban railroad line between Kansas City and Emporia that would have run through Stull.

[11][19] On July 25, 2022, the new Stull church mysteriously caught fire between 1 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.. No injuries were reported but there was substantial damage to the building and fear that the bell may fall.

[21] Far removed from the horrible story of The Exorcist or the bizarre black masses recently discovered in Los Angeles, and tucked away on a rough county road between Topeka and Lawrence is the tiny town of Stull.

The Stull Cemetery[23] has gained an ominous reputation due to urban legends involving Satan, the occult, and a purported "gateway to Hell".

[25][10] People soon said that the cemetery was the location of one of the seven gates to Hell and that the nearby Evangelical Emmanuel Church ruin was "possessed" by the Devil.

[6] It is also said that during a trip to Colorado in the 1990s, Pope John Paul II redirected the flight path of his private plane to avoid flying over the unholy ground of Stull (although there is no evidence that this happened).

[24] However, most academics, historians, and local residents are in agreement that the legend has no basis in historical fact and was created and spread by students.

[7][10] “Folks swear an old tree in the graveyard once served as gallows for condemned witches who return each year as Satan's army.

[27] In the years that followed the publication of the University Daily Kansan article, the legend persuaded thrill seekers to visit the cemetery, and they would claim that weird and creepy events such as noises and memory lapses happened to them, leading to further speculation that the town was haunted by witches and the devil.

It became a popular activity for young folks (especially high school and college students from Lawrence or Topeka) to journey to the cemetery on Halloween or the equinox to "see the Devil".

Over the decades, as the number of people making excursions to the cemetery grew, the graveyard started to deteriorate; this was exacerbated by vandals.