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Office: Ellis County Emergency Management – P.O. Box 257, Arnett, OK 73832 | (580) 923-7510
Related: Ellis County Sheriff’s Office – Arnett, OK.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: SH-46 serves Arnett, the county seat; US-283 and SH-15 serve Shattuck, the county’s largest town, in far northwestern Oklahoma
Transit: Limited; primarily auto-dependent – confirm current regional options directly with the county.
Business & Permits
BUILDING & PERMITS
Office: Ellis County Courthouse – 100 S Washington, Arnett, OK 73832
Notes: Contact the courthouse directly for current building permit requirements; Shattuck issues its own separate in-town permits.
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
County VSO: Ellis County Veterans Service Officer – Ellis County Courthouse, Arnett, OK
Libraries
LIBRARIES
System: Shattuck Public Library – 101 S. Main, Shattuck, OK 73858 | (580) 938-5104
Services: Contact directly for current hours; part of the Oklahoma Public Library System (OKPLS) network.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: Ellis County’s largest town, Shattuck, is genuinely home to the Shattuck Windmill Museum and Park, a beloved four-acre outdoor museum showcasing more than 50 vintage, fully restored windmills spanning roughly a century of use, from the 1850s through the 1950s; the collection ranges from the diminutive five-foot “Star Zephyr” to the towering 18-foot “Samson,” built variously of wood or steel, with genuinely no two windmills alike; every windmill in the park is authentic and was actually used at some point to pump water from underground sources for homesteaders’ farms and cattle in this historically dry stretch of northwestern Oklahoma; the museum, founded in 1994 by local resident Phillis Ballew, is run entirely by volunteers, many of them lifelong Shattuck residents in their 70s and 80s working to preserve this piece of prairie heritage for younger generations; the grounds also include a reconstructed dugout house made of stone and sod – the only shelter option available to the area’s earliest settlers before railroads brought lumber – along with a relocated 1900s-era farmhouse and a recreated 1904 general mercantile store; each September, windmill enthusiasts from across the United States and Canada gather in Shattuck for a dedicated week of hands-on maintenance work at the museum; Shattuck’s broader heritage includes strong German-Russian roots, celebrated annually through large family reunions and community Heritage Fest and Harvest Fest events, and the town is also the retirement home of native son Val Johns, a music composer and two-time Grammy and Academy Award winner best known for co-writing “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”; Ellis County itself was formed at statehood in 1907 and named for Albert H. Ellis, vice president of Oklahoma’s 1906 Constitutional Convention
Notes: Shattuck’s genuine, entirely volunteer-run Windmill Museum – preserving more than 50 authentic working windmills – is one of the most charmingly specific small-town museums found anywhere in this project.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
GIS Portal: Ellis County GIS – contact the Ellis County Courthouse for current parcel/GIS access
Parcel Search: Ellis County Assessor – 100 S Washington, Arnett, OK 73832, (580) 885-7975
Addressing/911: Coordinated through Ellis County Emergency Management
Animal Services
ANIMAL SERVICES
Notes: No dedicated county-run animal shelter or animal control department was confirmed in available sources for Ellis County. Ellis County Animal Hospital, 9401 Highway 15 E, Shattuck, OK, (580) 938-2551, is a private veterinary clinic (not a shelter) serving northwest Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle. For strays, contact the Ellis County Sheriff’s Office. The nearest confirmed regional shelters are in larger Oklahoma cities such as Woodward or Elk City – contact directly to confirm whether they accept intake from Ellis County residents.
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Environmental Complaints: Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) – deq.ok.gov
Notes: Contact your specific municipality directly for current refuse collection and recycling program details. Lake Vincent, near Arnett, offers fishing and picnic areas.
NOTES
Ellis County’s largest town, Shattuck, is genuinely home to a beloved, entirely volunteer-run Windmill Museum showcasing more than 50 authentic vintage windmills. All contact information above was sourced from official county, city, library, and courthouse pages as of this writing; phone numbers and hours should be reconfirmed directly with the relevant office before a visit.
About Ellis County County
Ellis County is northwest Oklahoma’s Black Kettle National Grassland and Washita Battlefield county – the native prairie named for the peace-seeking Cheyenne chief killed by Custer in 1868 and the national historic site preserving that tragedy define a county of significant Native American history where Arnett serves the surrounding wheat and cattle communities.
Arnett (the county seat, population ~440) is Ellis County’s governmental hub on US 283, a remote northwest Oklahoma community whose Black Kettle Grassland, Washita heritage, and wheat and cattle economy anchor its identity.
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Ellis County Assessor at 100 S. Washington Street, Arnett, OK 73832, phone 580-885-7269. OK assessed at 11% of fair cash value for residential.
Courts & Legal
Ellis County District Court at 100 S. Washington Street, Arnett, OK 73832, phone 580-885-7301, handles probate.
Marriage & Vital Records
Marriage licenses, divorce records, and birth & death certificates are handled by the following office(s):
COUNTY CLERK
100 South Washington St, Arnett, OK 73832
(580) 885-7301
COURT CLERK
100 South Washington St, Arnett, OK 73832
(580) 885-7420
Genealogy
County-level record sources
Ellis County District Court, Arnett (probate/estate case files – see Probate section above).
Local societies
No dedicated Ellis County genealogical society was confirmed in available directories.
Probate & Estate
Losing someone and having to deal with courts and paperwork at the same time is hard. This section won’t make that easier, but it should tell you what to expect, what it costs, and where to go – so at least you’re not walking in blind.
Where to go
Ellis County District Court 100 South Washington Street, Arnett, OK 73832 (580) 885-7255 Ellis County is in northwestern Oklahoma, seated in Arnett.
Step 1: figure out which path applies
Oklahoma has NOT adopted the Uniform Probate Code, maintaining its own probate statutes under Title 58 of the Oklahoma Statutes. Probate cases are handled by the District Court in each of Oklahoma’s 77 counties.
Small Estate Affidavit (58 O.S. § 393) – available when the total value of probate personal property (not counting real estate) is $50,000 or less. At least 10 days must have passed since death. This process skips court entirely: the affidavit is signed, notarized, and presented directly to whoever holds the asset (a bank, for example), along with a certified death certificate. Real estate can never be transferred this way – even a small estate with real property still needs some form of court proceeding.
Summary Administration – available when the total probate estate does not exceed $200,000, or when the decedent has been dead more than 5 years, or lived outside Oklahoma. This is an abbreviated form of probate – still court-supervised, but faster and less expensive than full administration.
Regular (Full) Administration – the standard court-supervised process, required for larger or more complex estates, or wherever real property is involved and the shortcuts above don’t apply. A personal representative (executor or administrator) is formally appointed by the court.
Step 2: filing for administration
A Petition for Probate is filed in the District Court of the county where the decedent resided; if there’s a will, the original is filed with the petition.
The court sets a hearing date and requires notice be given to heirs and interested parties.
The court appoints a personal representative (executor if named in a will, administrator if intestate) and issues Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration.
Creditors are notified; claims against the estate must be presented within the statutory period.
The personal representative inventories assets, pays valid debts and taxes, and distributes what remains according to the will or Oklahoma’s intestacy laws.
The estate is closed once a final accounting is filed and approved by the court.
What it costs
Filing fees vary by county – check with Ellis County directly for current fees.
Oklahoma has a statutory attorney fee schedule for probate, which provides more predictability than states without one.
No state estate tax, no state inheritance tax. Only the federal estate tax could apply, and only to very large estates.
Probate filings, estate administration, and guardianship matters are handled by the following office(s):
Public Safety & Arrests
Arrest records, inmate search, and law enforcement services are handled by the following office(s):
SHERIFF
100 South Washington St, Arnett, OK 73832
(580) 885-7422
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
ELECTION BOARD
100 South Washington St, Arnett, OK 73832
(580) 885-7301
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
Health Department
100 South Washington St, Arnett, OK 73832
(580) 885-7801
Department of Human Services
100 South Washington St, Arnett, OK 73832
(580) 885-7311
Public Health Information
PUBLIC HEALTH
Office: Ellis County Health Department – Arnett, OK
Related: Newman Memorial Hospital – Shattuck, OK.
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Last verified June 2026
County Facts
County Seat: Arnett
Population: 3,900
Public Records
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