Wolf Hotel, Historic building in Ellinwood, Kansas, US

The Wolf Hotel is a two-part commercial block at 104 E. Santa Fe in Ellinwood, Kansas, built in 1894 and designed by architect S.S. Voigt in Italianate style. The building runs 140 feet deep from east to west, is 50 feet wide at its west end and narrows to 30 feet at the east end. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

John Wolf built the hotel in 1894, adding it to the existing Delmonico Hotel, at a time when Ellinwood was a stop along the Santa Fe Trail and a town shaped largely by German settlers. During renovation work around 2020, crews uncovered sections of an underground tunnel network that once linked the building to a brewery founded in the 1870s.

The Wolf Hotel was built by John Wolf in 1894 next to the Delmonico Hotel, and its name is tied to the German settler family that ran it. The basement bar, open Friday and Saturday evenings, recalls the Prohibition era. At the June 1909 grand opening, Mrs. Wolf served smear cheese, a dry cottage cheese rooted in German tradition, to the whole town.

The hotel is in central Ellinwood, close to U.S. Highway 56, making it easy to reach by car and simple to walk around once you arrive. Guided tours of the underground tunnels are available on site and include free entry to the local museum, so it helps to plan that visit as part of your stay.

The Wolf Hotel was designed by architect S.S. Voigt in Italianate style and built in 1894; it joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. Its two-part commercial block runs 140 feet deep east to west, but narrows from 50 feet at the west end to 30 feet at the east end, a wedge shape a visitor can trace along East Santa Fe.