By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
ELLIS — Peppered throughout the downtowns of cities across northwest Kansas, many century-old buildings are quietly falling into complete disrepair — silently awaiting an inglorious demolition.
Among those buildings is an occasional church, at one time a point of pride for communities, but with congregations long disbanded and little commercial interest, these centers of worship far too frequently suffer the same fate as many of those other old buildings as populations decline.
But for the 112-year-old Ellis Congregational Church, a daily stream of community members still take advantage of the building’s hand-hewn limestone walls.
The building is home to the Ellis Nutrition Center, where prior to COVID-19, community seniors would gather daily to enjoy a hot meal together and the local Rotary Club, where members find ways to serve the community.
A few times a year the chapel, adorned in simple Christian iconography, even continues in the shadow of its original purpose, as a host to community weddings.
Perhaps most notably, the building is also the home of the Bukovina Society, one of three museums in Ellis, a feature rarely seen in a town of of its size.
“This whole town is full of history,” said Guy Windholz, Bukovina Society museum curator. “You’ll see here Walter P. Chrysler, we have the Railroad Museum, and we have this ancestral museum. … You show me a town with 2,000 population that has three museums of significance that attract tourism. I don’t know where it is at.”
Since the disbanding of the congregation in 1973 and the subsequent creation of the Ellis Arts and Historical Society to oversee the building and its use, great care has been given to maintain the old church, but even the hardiest building materials cannot hold up forever against the biting cold, terrible wind and torrential downpours that plague the area.
Water has deteriorated the wood around the original stained-glass windows, the roofs of the building's two towers are leaking water into the pressed-tin ceilings, and soft stone and mortar have worn down, creating dips and gaps in the exterior.
Now, caretakers for the building are reaching out to the public in order to help secure funding that will allow a grant application of $50,000 to be submitted that would be used to alleviate some of the most pressing concerns and allow the facility to continue serving the community well into the future.
In December, Gov. Laura Kelly announced applications were open for the Kansas Historical Society’s Kansas Rural Preservation grant program.
“The Kansas Historical Society has been actively working to preserve and share Kansas history for nearly 150 years,” Kelly then said. “The Paul Bruhn grants will go a long way in ensuring historic properties across the state can get the upkeep and treatment they need, so we can continue to celebrate and learn about our rich history for generations to come.”
The church qualifies for the grant — a non-government building listed on the National Register of Historic Places in a community of less than 30,000 people.
After learning of the grant program, Perry Henman, Ellis Arts and History president, was approached and along with the organization’s board, including Windholz. They decided to apply for the full amount of $50,000, but to be eligible for that full amount, the organization must raise a 10 percent match.
The grant application is due March 1, but they believe they will raise the money from the community in time and will continue to raise funds that will be used for repairs — even if the grant is not awarded.
Ellis Alliance Executive Director Sophia Henrickson will oversee the funds as grant administrator.
Donations can be submitted to Henrickson at the Ellis Alliance office, 820 Washington, in person or via mail, and should be made out to the Community Foundation of Ellis.
“The Ellis Alliance office and the Community Foundation is excited and happy to help projects like this and excited to see people in the community take them on and hopefully it can help beautification and tourism,” Henrickson said.
Keeping the building in good repair and usable for the foreseeable future, is seen as important for the community, not just for the group's currently using the facility, but also for community members now and in the future.
“Ellis doesn’t have a true community center,” Henman said.
But the building frequently will be used for things like family reunions and celebrations.
“It’s a community building downstairs, basically,” he said.
And, as home to the Bukovina Society, the building is not just important to locals, but to those communities that immigrated to locations across the Americas.
“You have people from all over the United States and actually from all over the world that come visit,” Henman said.
In fact, the largest group of Bukovinia immigrants settled in Ellis and was the largest population of the group outside of the area that is now located in Austria, bringing with them their religious traditions.
“This was a congregational church,” Henman said, as Bukovina immigrants, unlike the Volga-German populations that also settled throughout the region were not all the same faith.
The congregation that built the church had early in the cities history and had been meeting in a simple wooden building constructed in 1873.
By 1906, the congregation had decided to build a more permanent worship building, built in an eclectic style, borrowing heavily from the Gothic Revival architecture and constructed with the same limestone often used in early Ellis County settlements and which can be seen in many churches built in that era throughout the county.
The land was donated by businessman, banker and church trustee J.S. Nicholson and his wife Annie, both prominent members of the community and great-great-grandparents of Henman.
It would built by Tony Jacobs and Chris Wise, who are noted for building many prominent structures in early Hays, including the Saint Anthony’s hospital, the Lamar Hotel, now known as the Chestnut Building in downtown Hays and Thomas More Prep-Marion, originally Saint Joseph College.
Outside of the removal of a bell tower in 1952, the old church is virtually the same as it was when they completed construction and the congregation began meeting there in 1907.
And planned repairs would not change that.
A major portion of the grant would be used to remove the tower roofs, to be replaced with new materials and designed to better ensure water can flow from the roof and new flashing to keep the water out of the building.
The grant would also be used to fix and restore the integrity of the mortar and address wear on the lower limestone blocks worn from over 100 years of wind and rain.
The wood holding the stained-glass windows in place will also be addressed, and the protective screens that cover those windows will be replaced with new glass coverings to ensure the original windows can be enjoyed by future generations.
While the group is hopeful they will be awarded the full $50,000, they will be grateful for any amount given and Henman said they will prioritize repairs to use the award as efficiently as possible.
“We will fix what we can,” Henman said.
“We will prioritize stuff, but certainly the towers are number one because if we don’t stop the water from migrating in — then we are in trouble,” Windholz said.
While they wait from donations to come in and hope for good outcome on the grant application, Windholz said the building will continue to serve the community.
“We are keeping this building alive. … Activities are keeping this building alive and vibrant,” he said.
