Ells was an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Crawford County Crawford County is the name of eleven counties in the United States: * Crawford County, Arkansas * Crawford County, Georgia * Crawford County, Illinois * Crawford County, Indiana * Crawford County, Iowa * Crawford County, Kansas * Crawford County, ...

, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

. Today it is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

History

Ells was a village in Stockholm Township,

Crawford County, Iowa Crawford County is a county located in the U.S. state of Iowa. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,525. Its county seat is Denison. The county was named for William Harris Crawford, U.S. senator from Georgia and United States Secret ...

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...

ted in either 1899 or 1900. A post office was established in Ells on January 24, 1900 by Benjamin F. Ells. News of the new post office appeared in the ''Daily Iowa Capital'' in Des Moines on February 15, 1900. Ells, located one mile south of

Boyer Boyer () is a French surname. In rarer cases, it can be a corruption or deliberate alteration of other names. Origins and statistics Boyer is found traditionally along the Mediterranean (Provence, Languedoc), the Rhône valley, Auvergne, Limou ...

, was on the

Illinois Central Railroad The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, is a railroad in the Central United States. Its primary routes connected Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama, and thus, ...

and had a train depot and general store in 1911. Benjamin Ells served as the postmaster, appointed by President

William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until Assassination of William McKinley, his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Repub ...

. The post office at Ells was discontinued April 15, 1914. In 1915, the population of Ells was 26. Today, Crawford County residents consider Ells a "lost" town.

History

Further reading

References

See also