Old business buildings in Ludell, Kansas, by Kathy Alexander.
Ludell, Kansas, is a tiny town and census-designated place on Beaver Creek in Ludell Township in southeast Rawlins County. It is also officially an extinct town, as its post office closed years ago. As of the 2020 census, the population was 41.
A community was founded in 1876 by William H. Dimmick and his son-in-law, Thomas Jefferson Goodin. With them traveled five other German families to the area. Many of the Germans who settled in the area were from Pennsylvania. August Blume established a post office called Prag on December 13, 1876.
One of the first buildings in Ludell was the church, and soon to follow was the one-room schoolhouse. The school was located one mile east of the town center.
While Beaver Creek was the primary source of water and flora for the settlers, another waterway passed close by. Sappa Creek lay only five miles from the settlement and offered many of the same benefits as Beaver Creek. The settlement, situated near both creeks, provided the settlers with access to wood, plants, and natural irrigation for their low-lying fields.
This town’s name was changed to Kelso after the Kelso brothers opened a store in the area on June 3, 1879. The Kelso brothers were very prominent businessmen in the area. They owned the hardware store, were major funders of the bank, and contributed to the development of the stockyards. Their store was one of the first businesses to be built in the city limits. In 1879, they generated economic revenue like Ludell had never seen.
An old farmstead in Rawlins County, Kansas.
On August 11, 1880, the town’s name was changed to Danube when the Kelso brothers moved to Atwood.
The Blumes realized that they would have to establish the township with the assistance of William H. Dimmick. The townsite was named for Dimmick’s daughter, Luella. However, the name did not suit the Postal Service, as they said the town could not end in a vowel. Spelling changes would follow the original name, before officially settling on and receiving approval for Ludell on May 9, 1881.
The Review newspaper was first released in 1881 but lasted for only one year.
That year, Atwood was designated as the temporary county seat by the state of Kansas.
The Settler newspaper was printed from 1884 to 1887.
Afterward, the last newspaper published in the community was the Gazette, which began circulation in 1887 and lasted until 1893.
In 1889, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad came through Ludell, bringing about a significant boost to the town’s economy. Residents added 25 businesses, including two hardware stores, a grain mill, two stables for livestock, and August Blume opened a grain elevator.
Ludell, Kansas hotel.
By 1891, the town boasted 19 businesses, a school, and a church. Ludell was home to a livery stable, a grain elevator, and a hotel.
The railroad also brought about the implementation of large-scale farming in northwest Kansas, with the arrival of families such as the Holstes and Kastens, both of whom came into the area during the early 1900s. These two families took advantage of the fertile pastureland and the ease of transportation for their crops and other goods. Before long, the Holste family had the largest dairy farming operation in Rawlins County.
In 1906, Ludell, Atwood, and Herndon competed for the county seat. At that time, Atwood was made the permanent county seat and constructed the first courthouse in Rawlins County.
The Immanuel Lutheran Church was established in 1910.
Hauptman Implements in Ludell, Kansas, 1915.
In 1910, Ludell was still a station on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. At that time, it had a bank, two grain elevators, a number of general stores, public schools, and churches, telegraph and express offices, a money order post office with one rural route, and a population of 200.
As crops became more bountiful, farmers needed more space to store them. Given the location of the grain elevator, Blume was unable to expand the building’s capacity for crops. Realizing this, farmers soon began sending their harvest to Atwood and Herndon, where elevators could hold more, and they could unload faster and get back to the fields earlier.
Business building in Ludell, Kansas, by Kathy Alexander.
By 1914, Ludell had lost its stable, hardware store, church, and hotel. All of these businesses had moved to Atwood.
There was no city cemetery until the 1920s. Many families had their cemeteries on their farmstead.
Ludell blossomed until the 1930s, when the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl occurred. During that time, Atwood was granted federal aid to construct a dam and lake inside Driftwood Township. The Civilian Conservation Corps offered workers $1.00 a day, along with free room and board. This far outweighed the earnings of a farm hand anywhere else. So the population began to shift to the county seat of Atwood, where jobs were more readily available and where families did not have to travel far to find the goods they so desired.
Afterward, the town declined.
By 1934, only a bank was left in the city limits, as all of the businesses had moved to Atwood. Herndon also drew people away from Ludell.
Old grade school in Ludell, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.
By the 1940s, Ludell had dwindled to fewer than 20 families who still called it home and conducted business in the town.
Ludell’s post office was discontinued on September 28, 2002.
Today, Ludell is served by the Rawlins County USD 105 public school district, headquartered in Atwood, Kansas.
Ludell is 5.5 miles northeast of Atwood.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, updated September 2025.
Also See:
Silos and grain elevator in Ludell, Kansas by Kathy Alexander.
Extinct Towns of Rawlins County
Sources:
Blackmar, Frank W.; Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Vol I; Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912.
Fort Hays State University
Solko, Greg; Early Ludell, Rawlins County, Kansas, 1887-1933, Chapman Center for Rural Studies, Kansas State University, 12/19/2013.
Wikipedia