 Each time he moved in the Midwest there was an important design competition in the offing in the city to which he migrated.Architectural firms seemingly sought his services, paid him significantly more than other employees; and with each move he traded up in terms of professional opportunity.For each of his designs, Ellis made a so-called show drawing, usually a technically dazzling pen-and-ink perspective rendering, which Buffington and other employers submitted to the weekly "American Architect and Building News" and, sometimes, the monthly "Inland Architect".