Longtime Wichita historian Bill Ellington dies at 89

The keeper of Wichita’s history died Wednesday from complications after surgery.

William Clark “Bill” Ellington, Wichita city historian from 1971 until 1995, was 89.

“Whenever I had a Wichita question that I knew I wanted answered accurately, I called Mr. Wichita, Bill Ellington,” said Dave Webb, Kansas historian and author. “He always knew the answer.”

Mr. Ellington was born on March 21, 1926, at Wesley Hospital in Wichita. He grew up in the Riverside neighborhood, attending Riverside Elementary and John Marshall Middle schools. He was a 1945 graduate of North High School.

He was a gifted artist and early on began drawing and illustrating anything that caught his attention. When he was 4, he drew sketches on the side of his family’s house in Riverside.

He also grew up with an avid interest in history. His maternal grandfather, Cortland Woodruff Shepard, was a historian in the early 1880s and helped gather information for the history text “Kansas and Kansans.”

His great-grandfather William Adair was a friend of explorer Kit Carson.

Mr. Ellington attended the Kansas City Art Institute for two years and then came back to Wichita and took art classes at Wichita University. He served in the U.S. Army from 1953 to 1955, stationed at Fort Bliss near El Paso, Texas.

“He had already worked at Boeing as an illustrator when he got the notice to appear,” said his wife, Valerie Ellington. “When they found out he was an artist when they inducted him in at Fort Bliss, they kept him on the base doing artwork for the Army. He didn’t lift up a finger unless it was to hold up a pen. He enjoyed doing that.”

After he was honorably discharged from the Army, Mr. Ellington returned to Wichita and worked as an artist and illustrator for Boeing Wichita.

In 1969, Mr. Ellington was selected as one of seven writer-researchers for “Wichita Century,” a book commemorating Wichita’s history – first as a trading post and booming cowtown, then later as an airplane mecca.

While working on the book, Mr. Ellington began asking key leaders why a city the size of Wichita didn’t have a history office – an archival gathering place for people researching the city’s past.

“There was a lack of resources that I couldn’t believe,” Mr. Ellington told The Eagle when he retired as city historian in 1995. “That’s really what inspired the idea for this job.”

In 1971, Mr. Ellington got the job and began gathering and sorting the pieces of memory that a city carries. His office, in the basement at the Wichita Public Library, was filled with folders of handwritten papers from long-dead relatives of town founders or faded photographs of streets. On top of cabinets were stacks of newspaper clippings, and his desk was characteristically stacked in archaeological layers of even more papers, photos and artifacts.

At all times, he charmed visitors who inquired about local history. He was easily recognized about town with his quiet demeanor, dapper clothes, white mustache and shock of white hair.

“Bill introduced Wichita history to the general public in a way that was very nice,” said Eric Engstrom, Wichita attorney and fellow Wichita and Kansas history enthusiast. “He was such an approachable fellow with such a love of Kansas and Wichita. He was instrumental in organizing the collection at the library.”

Mr. Ellington served for many years as an honorary board member of the Kansas State Historical Society.

His funeral service will be at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the First United Methodist Church in the 300 block of North Broadway.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial contributions be made to the Kansas State Historical Society.

This story was originally published March 16, 2016 at 2:20 PM with the headline "Longtime Wichita historian Bill Ellington dies at 89."