“Everybody’s talking at parties about the tunnels in Ellinwood,” said Miss Sally Wolf, the mannequin at the Wolf Hotel. “I’d like to be able to join in. I’ve never seem them.”
“How long have you lived here?” said her friend Chris, incredulously.
“Well no one ever took me to see them,” she replied.
“Miss Sally, I’m sure if you’d asked, someone would have taken you to the tunnels,” Chris said. “Let’s go see them.”
“Groovy,” she said.
Although other cities in the area once  had underground communities, including Great Bend, many have been filled in. Ellinwood remains one that has tunnels available for tours.
Because of rapid growth in the late nineteenth century, busy businesses were located from top of the building to the bottom.  Ellinwood’s tunnels ran for a couple of blocks on Main Street with a passageway between.
A variety of shops were in the basements of these buildings, including a barbershop, bath house, and the jail. The city library was once in the basement of the Wolf Hotel.
As Miss Sally stood on the wooden sidewalk by the access door to the tunnels, she said, “Wow, all these years the tunnels have been here. So many things happened and so many people came through here.”

Miss Sally is a bi-monthly story about the mannequin at the Wolf Hotel in Ellinwood.