Schöntal, Rush Co., Kansas

The village of Schoental was on Eagle Creek, four and one-half miles north and one and one-half miles west of what later became the site of Otis. In Russia, the colonies of Schöntal, Schönfeldt, and Shöndorf were located near one another and immigrants from those three colonies settled near each other around Otis. Schoental was a predecessor settlement of Otis that did not survive after the railroad attracted settlement to the south.

The Evangelical Trinity Lutheran congregation was founded in Schoental by forty-seven families on 14 February 1877. The village of Schoental began to fade away in 1886 as the farmers abandoned the European tradition and moved out of the village to live on their homesteads. Some of these same settlers later established businesses in Otis.