A few miles north of Ennis is the little community of Crisp, and that's where Ernest Tubb was born, on a cotton farm, on the ninth of February, nineteen fourteen, into a sharecropper's family. He grew up idolizing Jimmie Rodgers and taught himself to sing and yodel like him. Then, in nineteen thirty nine, he had his tonsils taken out, and afterward he couldn't yodel anymore. So he sang the way he could, low and easy and conversational, and that became his trademark. In nineteen forty one he recorded Walking the Floor Over You, which sold four hundred thousand copies in its first year. He joined the Grand Ole Opry, and in nineteen forty seven he opened the Ernest Tubb Record Shop in Nashville. And Crisp itself was named for Charles Crisp, a Speaker of the United States House.

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The Ennis Drummer Behind a Blues Standard RoadyGoat

Rabon Tarrant was born in Ennis on Christmas Day, nineteen oh eight, and he grew up to be a drummer and singer in the jump blues scene in Los Angeles, with saxophonist Jack McVea's band. In nineteen forty six that band recorded Open the Door, Richard, a novelty song that became a national craze, with Tarrant on drums. In nineteen forty seven he wrote and recorded a song of his own called Blues With a Feeling. In nineteen fifty three the Chicago harmonica player Little Walter turned it into a hit, and it became a blues standard that musicians have been playing ever since.

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History of Ennis

Ennis, TX RoadyGoat

Ennis has a rich Czech and Slovak heritage, with many early settlers coming from war-torn European nations that later became Czechoslovakia. This influx of immigrants not only contributed to the city's population growth but also transformed its cultural landscape. Ennis became one of the largest Czech communities in Texas, and this ethnic heritage has been preserved and celebrated through traditions such as the annual National Polka Festival.

The Town the Railroad Drew on a Map RoadyGoat

Ennis exists because a railroad needed a place to stop. In 1871 the Houston and Texas Central Railway pushed north into Ellis County and bought roughly 647 acres of farmland at about five dollars an acre to anchor its line. Surveyors laid out the streets, the first train rolled through in 1872, and on June 8 that year the townsite was platted into being. The community took its name from Cornelius Ennis, a New Jersey-born Houston merchant who became an incorporator and director of the H&TC and even served a stretch as mayor of Houston in the 1850s. During the Civil War he ran cotton through the Union blockade, buying his own steamer in gold to do it. He never lived here, but the company honored him by stamping his name on its new northern terminus. The town incorporated in 1873, held its first election in 1874, and elected Charles Pannil its first mayor. From the very first survey stake, Ennis was a railroad town, conjured out of the prairie by a company that needed a division point where the cotton met the rails. (Source: Handbook of Texas.)

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The Day the Frost Tornado Came to Ennis RoadyGoat

On the afternoon of May 6, 1930, one of the deadliest tornadoes in Texas history tore a path straight toward Ennis. The storm touched down near Bynum in Hill County, crossed into Navarro County and flattened the little town of Frost, then drove northeast into Ellis County. By the time the day's violence was tallied, that single F4 tornado had killed 41 people and injured around 200, with deaths reported in Ennis and the nearby communities of Bardwell and Rankin. It still ranks among the top ten deadliest tornadoes the state has ever recorded. May 6, 1930, was a brutal day across Texas, with multiple tornadoes claiming 82 lives in all, but for this corner of Ellis County the Frost storm was the one that left families burying their neighbors. There were no sirens, no radar, and almost no warning in 1930, only a black wall of wind coming up out of the southwest faster than anyone could run. Standing here today, it is worth remembering the prairie sky can turn lethal in minutes. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Texas tornado records.)

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Lummus, Andrew Jackson, Jr. [Jack]

1945

Medal of Honor recipient, Andrew Jackson Lummus, Jr., referred to as Jack, was born on October 22, 1915, in Ennis, Texas, a cotton-farming town. He was the son of Andrew Jackson Lummus, Sr., a cotton farmer, and Laura Francis (Warren) Lummus. The Lummus family experienced hardship during the Great Depression . As a youngster, Jack Lummus enjoyed athletic success in both football and baseball at Ennis High School in the early 1930s. Lummus dropped out of high school after his second year due to the family's financial situation. Texas Military College at Terrell offered Lummus an athletic scholarship where he was able to finish his final two years of high school in 1937. In 1937 Lummus accepted an athletic scholarship to Baylor University where he played football and baseball for the next four years. In football, Lummus (standing at 6' 3" and weighing 195 pounds) played end, and his play and speed attracted the attention of the New York Giants of the National Football League. As a senior, he was selected to the All-Southwest Conference football team. Playing centerfield in baseball, Lummus earned spots on the All-Southwest Conference team in 1938, 1939, and 1940. Jack Lummus's career took a number of turns in 1941. With the nation moving closer to war, he mulled his military options as well as his options as a professional athlete. In May Lummus enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps to attend flight school and dropped out of Baylor before earning his degree. While waiting on orders for flight school, Lummus signed a contract to play outfield with the Wichita Falls Spudders, a semiprofessional baseball club in the West Texas-New Mexico League . He played in twenty-six games for the Spudders until July 6 when he received orders to report to flight training at Hicks Field northwest of Fort Worth. During flight training, he received numerous phone calls from the New York Giants inviting him to their training camp in Wisconsin. After successfully completing the preflight training, Lummus washed out of flight training on his solo flight when the wing of his P-19 Fairchild clipped a fence on landing. Given an honorable discharge, Lummus headed to Wisconsin where he won a spot on the New York Giants 1941 roster as a backup end. As a rookie, he saw considerable playing time as a defensive end. Lummus first became aware of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during a game between the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers at the Polo Grounds on December 7, 1941. The Texan played his final game with the New York Giants in the NFL championship game against the Chicago Bears at Wrigley Field on December 21; which the Bears won, 37-9. A few days later, Lummus drove home to Texas. On January 30, 1942, Lummus went to Dallas and enlisted in the Marine Corps. After completing recruit training in San Diego, California, he was assigned to Mare Island, California, where he was promoted to private first class and then corporal. In October Lummus was selected for Officer Candidates School at Quantico, Virginia, from which he was commissioned a second lieutenant on December 30, 1942. In 1943 he served as an instructor in the Infantry School at Camp Elliot in San Diego. In June he was assigned as a student officer in the elite Raider Battalion at Camp Pendleton where he also served as an instructor. After the Raider Battalions were disbanded in early 1944, Lummus was reassigned to the Fifth Marine Division. In the Fifth Marine Division, Jack Lummus was among the first wave of marines that landed on Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. As a rifle platoon leader, Lummus's actions on March 8 against stubborn Japanese defenders on the island's west coast, the Nishi Ridge, earned him the Medal of Honor. After a failed initial attempt to break through enemy lines, Lummus called for tank support to provide added firepower. After personally guiding the tanks into position in rugged terrain and ignoring hostile fire, he directed his men against the enemy. Moving forwa

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Jay Justin Clarke

1902

On June 15, 1902, at a baseball field in Ennis, Texas, Jay Justin Clarke set two single game professional Minor League Baseball records. The game was unusual because it was scheduled to be played in Corsicana, but was relocated to Ennis due to Corsicana’s “Blue Laws” which prohibited the playing of the game on a Sunday. The Corsicana Oil Citys beat the Texarkana Casketmakers 51-3 that day. Clarke, who played for the Oil Citys, hit eight home runs and tallied sixteen runs batted in, records that still stand as all-time Minor League records. The actual field has been lost to history, but played a major role in Clarke’s records as the fence was estimated to be less than 210 feet from home plate.

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Jack Lummus

1915

(October 22, 1915 - March 8, 1945) Born on an Ellis County farm, Jack Lummus attended school at Alma and Ennis, and Baylor University on an athletics scholarship. He played minor league baseball in Texas and football for the New York Giants. He joined the U. S. Marines in 1942 and on February 19, 1945, landed with the Fifth Marine Division in the first wave of assault troops on Iwo Jima. On March 8, after fighting without respite for two days and nights, Lummus and his rifle platoon slowly advanced toward a complex of pillboxes before being halted by Japanese forces. Despite injuries from two grenade explosions, Lummus single-handedly destroyed three enemy emplacements before stepping on a land mine, sustaining fatal wounds. His congressional Medal of Honor celebrates his "conspicuous gallantry and tenacious perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds." (1999) Supplemental plate: An exhibit with photos of Jack Lummus, a copy of the citation for his Medal of Honor and other records are available in the library on this site.

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National Polka Festival

1966

The National Polka Festival, an annual music festival held each May in Ennis, Texas, was first organized in 1966 by Raymond Zapletal, Len Gehrig, and Joe Liska, in conjunction with Jack McKay, head of the local Chamber of Commerce. As the largest Czech polka festival in the United States, in the 2010s it attracts approximately 50,000 people who join together in dancing, singing, and celebrating Czech cultural heritage every Memorial Day weekend. The tradition of Czech polka music spread throughout the Lone Star State soon after the first large groups of Czech immigrants began arriving in the 1850s. Three other major waves of immigration during the 1870s, 1880s, and early 1900s helped give Czech culture a strong presence throughout the Southwest. Most Czechs settled in Central and North Central Texas, where they set up farms, schools, social and cultural organizations, and newspapers to help maintain their language and ethnic identity. For these new Texas Czechs, music played a vital role in their day-to-day lives. Dancing was an important part of this musical culture, providing entertainment, exercise, and recreational time with the family. At first dances were held in private homes, but as the Texas-Czech population grew, several organizations began building dance halls which regularly hosted dances and other celebrations of Czech culture. Ennis, which is about forty miles south of Dallas, is one of the most northern Czech settlements in Texas. The town has four large Czech fraternal halls, three of which participate in the festival—the Knights of Columbus , the Sokol Activity Center, and Katolicka Jednota Texaska (Catholic Union of Texas) known as the KJT—which provide centrally-located venues for all the festival’s music and dancing. Because it has maintained a thriving Czech culture, Ennis is ideally suited for hosting the National Polka Festival. The festival kicks off on Friday with a dancing competition, followed by a King and Queen contest that evening. The parade starts on Saturday morning at 10:00 A.M. and includes clowns, cheerleaders, bands, floats, and horses. The festival also offers traditional food, dancing, costumes, music, arts and crafts, and a horseshoe tournament. On Sunday, Mass is held at 10:00 A.M. at the Knights of Columbus, followed by more dancing, food, and music at all three halls. Typically the festival features anywhere from eight to fourteen bands performing different styles of polka music , ranging from traditional to modern. Participants have included Grammy-award-winning groups as well as bands from across the United States and as far away as the Czech Republic. A few of the more popular groups include Grammy-award-winning Brave Combo, Czech and Then Some, the Jodie Mikula Orchestra, Dujka Brothers, Texas Dutchmen, the Czechaholics, and the Ennis Czech Boys. The National Polka Festival focuses on involving the entire family in the weekend’s events, thereby encouraging all generations to better understand and appreciate Czech history and culture. The influence of Czech musical traditions can be seen throughout the Southwest, as traditional Czech instruments and song styles, including the accordion and the polka, have been incorporated into Texas-Mexican conjunto , East Texas zydeco , and even western swing.

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Coronado, Sam Zaragosa, Jr.

1946

The son of Sam Zaragosa and Margarita Coronado, Sam Z. Coronado, Jr., artist, educator, and cultural activist, was born on July 12, 1946, in the small farm town of Ennis, Texas. His maternal grandparents were cotton pickers who taught him the value of a strong work ethic. He attended Crozier Tech High School in Dallas and voluntarily enlisted in the United States Army; he served from 1964 to 1967. As part of the Cold War effort, he served in Germany with an artillery company that included a nuclear weapons arsenal. After his stint in the army he attended El Centro College in Dallas and studied drafting and design. He secured his first drawing job as a technical illustrator for Texas Instruments in 1969 and earned an Associate of Applied Science degree from El Centro in 1970. Coronado eventually went to the University of Texas at Austin and attended college on the G.I. Bill. Along with his colleagues Vicki Plata, Rey Gaytan, and Sylvia Orozco, he cofounded the Chicano Art Students Association. In 1975 he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.F.A. in painting and printmaking. Throughout his career, Coronado also worked in other occupations, either as a technical illustrator or as an educator, to financially support his artistic endeavors. Coronado is best known for his artistic contributions in the field of Chicana/o and U.S. Latino art. He began in oils and acrylics. His paintings are intimate portraits of the Mexican American experience. However, his most memorable and influential work was in the field of graphic arts. He was a painter turned printmaker following two residencies with Self Help Graphics in East Los Angeles in 1991. Drawing on Mexican Social Realism, American Pop Art, and the iconographic traditions of Chicano art, he produced groundbreaking series such as Guerrillera , World War II , and Hearts that spoke on the politics of identity, autobiography, and Tejano history. Coronado also illustrated for books and magazines, and he created company logos. His lifework has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and publications across the United States, Europe, Africa, and Latin America, including retrospectives at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center , San Antonio (1987); Mexic-Arte Museum , Austin (2011); and the Latino Cultural Center, Dallas (2012). He mastered the art of serigraphy (also known as screen printing and silkscreening) with draughtsmanship and humor, and became one of its most ardent promoters by founding Coronado Studio, a collaborative print workshop dedicated to the production of fine art serigraphy, in the early 1990s. The workshop became a training ground for a number of accomplished master printers including Pepe Coronado, Brian Johnson, Paul Fucik, and Brian Rice. However, his greatest intervention for the field came in 1993 with the founding of Serie Project, a nonprofit printmaking residency program that awards competitive fellowships to artists wishing to explore the technique with the assistance of a master printer. Serie Project has hosted more than 300 artist residencies and has introduced a new generation of artists to a graphic tradition of historical importance to the Chicano art movement (1965–1985). The roster of resident artists includes Malaquias Montoya, Ester Hernández, César Martínez, Celia Alvarez Muñoz, Juan Sánchez, Diógenes Ballester, and Scherezade Garcia. Coronado’s cultural activism fostered community-building and exhibition opportunities for underrepresented artists. As someone who experienced first-hand the discriminatory practices against Mexican American artists in the Southwest, he was committed to promoting cultural democracy in the arts. Coronado was part of a generation of artists who came of age during the 1960s and believed that establishing alternative and culturally-specific institutions was the first step toward equality. In 1980 he founded Arcoiris , a statewide network for Mexican American artists based in Houston that promoted exhibition

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Burnam Square and Cemetery

1856

William R. and Edeline House bought the land on which Burnam Square and Cemetery were located in 1856 for the price of a slave named John. In 1861, after her husband died, Edeline House had the 25-block town laid out and donated one acre for a graveyard. The Houston and Texas Central Railroad bypassed Burnam Square in 1871 and founded Ennis. Residents and businesses moved here, causing Burnam Square to decline. The 40-grave burial site is all that remains of the once thriving community of Burnam Square.

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Things to Do in Ennis

food 18.9 mi away

Collin Street Bakery

August Weidmann arrived in Corsicana from Bavaria in 1896 and opened a little bakery on Collin Street. His DeLuxe Fruitcake packed with pecans cherries and…

food 18.8 mi away

Wolf Brand Chili Origin Corner

Lyman T. Davis parked his lunch wagon at this corner of Beaton Street and 5th Avenue in 1895, ladling out five-cent bowls of chili in front of the Blue Front…

Everything Near Ennis

624 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Ennis, TX
Ennis has a rich Czech and Slovak heritage, with many early settlers coming from war-torn European nations that later became Czechoslovakia. This influx of immigrants not only contributed to the city's population growth…
The Town the Railroad Drew on a Map
Ennis exists because a railroad needed a place to stop. In 1871 the Houston and Texas Central Railway pushed north into Ellis County and bought roughly 647 acres of farmland at about five dollars an acre to anchor its…
The Day the Frost Tornado Came to Ennis
On the afternoon of May 6, 1930, one of the deadliest tornadoes in Texas history tore a path straight toward Ennis. The storm touched down near Bynum in Hill County, crossed into Navarro County and flattened the little…
A Little Bit of Old Czechoslovakia, Every Memorial Day
Ennis is one of the great Czech towns of Texas, settled in waves by immigrants from the lands that became Czechoslovakia, and every Memorial Day weekend it throws the party that proves it: the National Polka Festival.…
The Ennis-Born Surgeon Who Got to Connally First
James Henry Duke Junior, the surgeon everybody called Red, was born in Ennis on the sixteenth of November, nineteen twenty eight, though his family moved to Hillsboro, where he grew up. He was head yell leader at Texas…
Ernest Tubb, Born Near Crisp
A few miles north of Ennis is the little community of Crisp, and that's where Ernest Tubb was born, on a cotton farm, on the ninth of February, nineteen fourteen, into a sharecropper's family. He grew up idolizing…
The Barrel Racer Who Came Back
Mary Walker, a barrel racer based in Ennis, had been competing for decades when two blows landed in the same year. In April of twenty eleven, her son Reagon was killed in a car crash on his way to a rodeo. Two months…
The Engine That Blew Up South of Town
Early on the morning of the third of November, nineteen oh five, a Houston and Texas Central freight train was about three miles out of Ennis when its engine blew up. The firebox exploded, the train went into the ditch,…
The Bank Sam Bass Decided Not to Rob
In July of eighteen seventy eight, the outlaw Sam Bass and his gang rode south toward what turned out to be his last stand, and along the way they sized up banks. One of the riders, Jim Murphy, was secretly working for…
The Handshake That Was Really About Water
What kept Ennis alive after the first trains was a deal about water. When the Houston and Texas Central made Ennis the headquarters of its northern division around 1891, it built large machine shops and a roundhouse…
Where Railroads and Cotton Fields Meet
For its first sixty years Ennis lived inside a single slogan the Chamber of Commerce eventually made official: Where Railroads and Cotton Fields Meet. It was no exaggeration. The black Blackland Prairie soil around here…
The Town That Got Skipped Came Back Shooting
Founding a railroad town created winners and losers, and the losers did not always go quietly. When the Houston and Texas Central chose this spot for its new community in the early 1870s, it bypassed the nearby…

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The Night a Twister Walked Down Ennis Avenue
Just after midnight on May 15, 2013, an EF1 tornado dropped onto Ennis and walked roughly two and a half miles right down Ennis Avenue, the commercial spine between downtown and Interstate 45. Packing winds near 90…
From a Railroad Engineer's Son to Running AT&T and GM
One of the most powerful executives in modern American business was born in this railroad town. Edward Whitacre Jr. was born in Ennis on November 4, 1941, the son of a railroad engineer, in a place still defined by the…
The Dam That Catches the Creek Before It Floods You
About five miles south of town, Waxahachie Creek runs into a wall of engineered earth called Lake Bardwell, and the whole thing is a lesson in flood control. Authorized by the federal Flood Control Act of 1960 and built…
The All-Woman Supreme Court
Hattie Henenberg was born in Ennis on the sixteenth of February, eighteen ninety three, and she ended up on one of the strangest courts in American history. In nineteen twenty four, a land case reached the Texas Supreme…
The Movie Chain That Started in Ennis
The movie theater company Cinemark traces its roots to downtown Ennis. The Plaza Theatre opened on North Dallas Street in nineteen thirty three and later became the Tara, and in nineteen sixty it became the first indoor…
The Ennis Drummer Behind a Blues Standard
Rabon Tarrant was born in Ennis on Christmas Day, nineteen oh eight, and he grew up to be a drummer and singer in the jump blues scene in Los Angeles, with saxophonist Jack McVea's band. In nineteen forty six that band…
The Night Ennis Ended the Streak
In nineteen seventy five the Cuero Gobblers were the most feared team in Texas high school football. Under coach Buster Gilbreth they had won forty four games in a row. Ennis met them in the Class Three A state…
The Yankees Who Came South and Woke Up to Snow
Southeast of Ennis is the little town of Rice, and it has a few odd stories. A town history says that in eighteen seventy seven a trainload of settlers from New York and New Jersey came to Rice looking for a warmer…
The Soda Water War
John Vickery had been making soda water in Ennis for twenty years when a man named Charles Hogan opened a rival soda water plant, and Vickery told him that several others had tried to compete with him, and he'd put them…
The Morning After
On the night of the eighteenth of August, eighteen eighty, Ennis city marshal Joe Bullard arrested a man named S. B. Alexander for being drunk and boisterous and locked him up. Alexander swore he'd shoot the marshal on…
The Whittled Cartridge
One September afternoon in eighteen ninety eight, a seventeen year old sat on some barrels in front of Mr. Nichols' store in Ennis with two brothers, whittling on pistol cartridges. He held one up with the bullet end…
The Cotton Picker's Wagon
J. N. Hale was about seventy, a small man who followed the cotton harvest in a wagon, and one September evening he was seen camping with a young cotton picker. The next morning Hale's wagon was standing alone on an old…
The Factory That Vanished From the Trinity
Before there was an Ennis, there was a factory dream out on the Trinity River. A settlement called Trinity City was renamed Telico by the middle of the eighteen fifties, after Tellico Plains in Tennessee, and in…
Coaching From a Scooter
Sam Harrell took over Ennis football in nineteen ninety four and won state championships in two thousand, two thousand one and two thousand four. In two thousand nine he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and stepped…
The April Tornado
On the evening of the twenty eighth of April, nineteen seventy one, around eight o'clock, an F Two tornado touched down just north of Ennis. It was on the ground for only about a mile, a hundred yards wide, but it hurt…
The Falcon That Fell at Two Hundred Forty Two Miles an Hour
Ennis had the first Sokol lodge in Texas, founded in nineteen oh eight, and sokol is the Czech word for falcon. So here's a falcon story. Peregrine falcons hunt by diving on other birds in midair, and for years nobody…
Cactus Jack and the Great Flower Fight
Ennis is the official Bluebonnet City of Texas, but the bluebonnet had to win a fight to become the state flower. In nineteen oh one the Texas Legislature set out to pick one. Cotton was king, so some lawmakers wanted…
The Dance That Named the Polka Dot
Ennis throws the National Polka Festival, so here's how the polka took over the world. The story told in an old music dictionary is that a servant girl in Bohemia made up the dance around eighteen thirty, and a local…
The Ennis Rookie in the World Series
Charles Hudson was born in Ennis in nineteen fifty nine, pitched at Prairie View A and M, and reached the major leagues with the Philadelphia Phillies in nineteen eighty three. That October, as a rookie, he started Game…
Tornado, Fire and a Czech Parish Reborn
The first Czech family in Ennis, the parish history says, was Jacob Sebesta's, in eighteen seventy three. Catholics here first worshipped in a remodeled house. In eighteen eighty seven a tornado destroyed that church,…
The Ennis Native Who Hired Carol Burnett
Bob Banner, a native of Ennis, became one of television's great producers. He started in Chicago TV in nineteen forty eight, and as director of The Garry Moore Show he hired a young Carol Burnett as a regular. He won an…
The Laundry and the Gasoline Drum
In eighteen ninety six, E. E. and Jennie Collins ran a steam laundry in Ennis that heated its machines with gas made from gasoline, bought in drums from the oil company's local agent. One drum, holding about a hundred…
The Chambers Creek Monster
Ennis has its share of Bigfoot stories, all of them witness reports sent in years later, so take them as folklore. One tells of two men fishing on Chambers Creek between Avalon and Ennis back in the nineteen sixties who…
The Czech Tune the Whole World Sang
The National Polka Festival here in Ennis celebrates Czech music, so here's the most famous Czech tune of all. In nineteen twenty seven, a bandleader named Jaromír Vejvoda, from Zbraslav on the edge of Prague, wrote a…
Near the Railroad Yards
In August of nineteen thirty one, Ellis County deputy William Warren and another deputy stopped to question a man near the railroad yards at Ennis. By the officers' account, the man opened fire as they started to…
The Grocer From Ennis
Robert Onstead grew up in Ennis, according to his obituary, and was working in the grocery business here as a young teenager. In nineteen sixty six, he and two partners opened Randalls Food Markets in Houston with two…
Ennis Style
Jodie Mikula was born in Telico, just east of Ennis, in nineteen eighteen, and learned the accordion from his uncle. In nineteen sixty seven he formed the Jodie Mikula Orchestra, a family band with his sons, his wife on…
The Wreck on the Way North
In the early morning hours of the twenty sixth of September, nineteen seventy four, two men robbed a convenience store in Houston, and one of the clerks was killed. Hours later, heading north, their car wrecked in Ellis…
The Depot That Became the Town's Memory · 0.1 mi
If you want to stand inside the thing that made Ennis, walk into the Ennis Railroad and Cultural Heritage Museum at 105 NE Main Street, in the heart of the downtown historic district just east of the tracks. The museum…
Ennis, Town of · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Ennis, a town born on the railroad in 1872. Originally a market town on the Houston & Texas Central Railway, it was named for a railway official, Cornelius Ennis. Ennis quickly became a hub,…
Southern Pacific Railroad in Ennis · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Ennis, a town born from the railroad. Back in 1887, this spot became the northern end of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad line. The city itself was named for Cornelius Ennis, an early…
Daffan, Katie · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Ennis home of Katie Daffan, a woman who wore many hats in early 20th-century Texas. She started as a teacher, then became an author, writing books including a Texas history textbook. For years,…
Railroads in Ennis · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Ennis, a town that owes its very existence to the railroad. The Houston and Texas Central Railroad laid tracks nearby in 1871, and the very next year, Captain W. G. Veale platted this town along…
Jay Justin Clarke · 0.2 mi · Historical Marker
On June 15, 1902, at a baseball field in Ennis, Texas, Jay Justin Clarke set two single game professional Minor League Baseball records. The game was unusual because it was scheduled to be played in Corsicana, but was…
Ennis City Hall · 0.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Ennis City Hall, a building that's served this community since 1915. Look at that Classical Revival style, designed by Hix McCanless, a Tennessee native who became Ennis's top architect and city…
Ennis National Bank · 0.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the historic Ennis National Bank building, constructed way back in 1883. That same year, the bank opened its doors with Joseph Baldridge at the helm. For over thirty years, until 1917, the bank ran…
The Engineering of the Cotton Compress · 0.3 mi
The reason Ennis became a global cotton power wasn't just the soil; it was a piece of industrial engineering: the steam-powered cotton compress. A standard bale of ginned cotton weighs 500 pounds but is incredibly…
Ennis, TX · 0.3 mi
Ennis sits at the edge of one of America's most infamous criminal sagas. Clyde Barrow was born about ten miles up the road from here, at Telico in Ellis County, in March of 1909, before his family gave up farming for…
When Cotton Was King · 0.3 mi
Look at the railroad tracks that run through the center of Ennis. This town exists because of them. The Houston and Texas Central pushed through in 1871 and made Ennis its northern division headquarters, building…
The Official Bluebonnet City · 0.3 mi
If you're driving through Ennis in the springtime, you're in for a treat. In 1997, the Texas Legislature declared Ennis the 'Official Bluebonnet City of Texas,' and it’s a title the town takes seriously. Every April,…
The Falcons Who Rebuilt in a Year · 0.3 mi
Two miles east of downtown on Highway 34 stands the Sokol Activity Center, home to a Czech tradition Ennis has kept alive since 1908. Sokol is the Czech word for falcon, chosen for the bird's strength and independence,…
Barley Home, H.P. · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the H.P. Barkley Home, a Victorian beauty built right here in Ennis back in 1892. Think elaborate gingerbread detailing! It was constructed by B.F. Sargeant for Barkley, who was a conductor and…
Matthews - Atwood House · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Ennis, and right here is the Matthews-Atwood House. In 1900, Pearl C. Matthews and his brother Will opened a second department store in Ennis, expanding their business from McKinney. Pearl and his…
Jack Lummus · 0.5 mi · Historical Marker
(October 22, 1915 - March 8, 1945) Born on an Ellis County farm, Jack Lummus attended school at Alma and Ennis, and Baylor University on an athletics scholarship. He played minor league baseball in Texas and football…
Moore House · 0.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Moore House in Ennis, a stunning example of Neoclassical Revival architecture built back in 1905. It was home to Malinda and Hardin T. Moore. Malinda was quite a force – widowed twice, she…
Lummus, Andrew Jackson, Jr. [Jack] · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
Medal of Honor recipient, Andrew Jackson Lummus, Jr., referred to as Jack, was born on October 22, 1915, in Ennis, Texas, a cotton-farming town. He was the son of Andrew Jackson Lummus, Sr., a cotton farmer, and Laura…
National Polka Festival · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
The National Polka Festival, an annual music festival held each May in Ennis, Texas, was first organized in 1966 by Raymond Zapletal, Len Gehrig, and Joe Liska, in conjunction with Jack McKay, head of the local Chamber…
The Fake Punt That Won the Game of the Century · 0.6 mi
The throw that sent SMU to the Rose Bowl in nineteen thirty five came from a kid born in Ennis. Bob Finley was born here in nineteen fifteen. On November thirtieth, nineteen thirty five, SMU and TCU, both undefeated and…
Coronado, Sam Zaragosa, Jr. · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
The son of Sam Zaragosa and Margarita Coronado, Sam Z. Coronado, Jr., artist, educator, and cultural activist, was born on July 12, 1946, in the small farm town of Ennis, Texas. His maternal grandparents were cotton…
Burnam Square and Cemetery · 0.6 mi · Historical Marker
William R. and Edeline House bought the land on which Burnam Square and Cemetery were located in 1856 for the price of a slave named John. In 1861, after her husband died, Edeline House had the 25-block town laid out…
Ivery, Marchel Lee · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Ennis, Texas, where jazz saxophonist Marchel Lee Ivery was born. Ivery grew up in a musical household, but it was hearing Charlie Parker that made him switch from trumpet to saxophone. After…
Ennis, TX · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Ennis, Texas, a town born from a railroad rivalry. Back in 1871, the Houston and Texas Central Railway reached this spot, and a new community was named for an official, Cornelius Ennis. But the…
Two Dozen Kinds of Kolache on Ennis Avenue · 0.6 mi
You cannot really understand Ennis until you have eaten its Czech heritage, and the easiest place to do that is the Kolache Depot Bakery at 1103 East Ennis Avenue. The kolache is the classic Czech breakfast pastry, a…
The Ennis Cartoonist Behind Bugs and Scrooge · 0.6 mi
One of the people behind Bugs Bunny and Uncle Scrooge comic books was born in Ennis. Chase Craig was born here in nineteen ten. He studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, and in the late nineteen thirties he worked…
The Czech Valley That Named the Dollar · 0.6 mi
Ennis is one of the great Czech towns in Texas, and the word in your wallet comes from a Czech valley. In fifteen sixteen a rich silver mine opened near a town in Bohemia called Sankt Joachimsthal, Saint Joachim's…
Daffan, Lawrence Aylett · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Ennis, Texas, a town that was home to Lawrence Daffan. Daffan was just 16 when he enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861, heading east to Virginia to join Hood's Texas Brigade. He fought in…
Mikula, Josef Matej [Jodie] · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Ellis County, and right here is the story of Josef Matej Mikula, known to everyone as Jodie. Born in Telico in 1918, Jodie was a Texas-Czech musician who became a legend in the polka world. He…
Sharp, John Henry · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Robertson County, and right here is where John Henry Sharp got his start. Born in 1874, he grew up on a farm, studied law, and eventually became a judge. But what's really interesting is his…
Central Texas League · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Central Texas, and right here, you're passing through the heart of what was once the Central Texas League. This was a minor league baseball circuit that ran from 1914 to 1917, but it was shaky…
Rankin, Frederick Harrison · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what was once Spanish Texas, and right here, you're near the lands granted to Frederick Harrison Rankin. He was one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, arriving in 1822. By 1824,…
Myrtle Cemetery · 0.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Myrtle Cemetery, a final resting place with roots stretching back to the very beginnings of Texas. The land was first deeded for burials in 1875, named for a child whose lone grave was part of the…
Wayman Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church · 0.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Wayman Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Ennis. Organized in 1880 by residents who moved from Telico, the congregation was led in the early 1900s by Dr. C.A. Harris. In 1905,…
Rankin, Frederick Harrison · 1.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site where Frederick Harrison Rankin lived out his long life in Texas. Born in Kentucky in 1795, Rankin was among the very first settlers to arrive with Stephen F. Austin's initial colony back in…
Old Lake Dam · 1.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Old Lake Dam, built way back in 1891. Now, this wasn't just any old lake; it was a strategic move to bring the Houston and Texas Central Railroad's headquarters to Ennis. The railroad…
Old Bardwell · 1.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Old Bardwell. In the 1880s, this area was known as Pleasant Valley, a hub for cotton farmers. A cotton gin was built here in 1883, and the town was eventually named Bardwell after its…
Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Ennis (Ennis) · 1.8 mi
Ennis (Ennis, TX) placed on the 5A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Keno Castillo (0.459 avg, 1 HR); Kevin Rodriguez (3 HR).
A Town Made by the Railroad · 2.9 mi
Garrett didn't start out with the name it has now. Before the tracks came through, people called this place Guide. Then in the early 1870s the Houston and Texas Central Railway pushed north toward Dallas, and right here…
Engineering the Prairie Lifeline · 2.9 mi
The tracks running beside the road here weren't just passing through. This was a crossing. In the early 1870s the Houston and Texas Central Railway, working north toward Dallas, met the Waxahachie Tap Road right at this…
The Dam That Holds Back the Floods · 4.2 mi
Just northeast of town sits Bardwell Lake, and it is not really there for fun, it is a flood-control machine. In the 1960s the Army Corps of Engineers dammed Waxahachie Creek with an earthen embankment more than eighty…
Phillip R. Pierce · 4.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the resting place of Phillip R. Pierce, a soldier who fought for Texas's independence. Born in North Carolina in 1813, Pierce later joined the Madisonville Cavalry, Texas Volunteers. He served during…
The Field of Dreams That Reinvented Drag Racing · 5.2 mi
Out on U.S. 287 south of town sits a piece of motorsports that changed its entire sport. The Texas Motorplex, at 7500 U.S. Highway 287, was built in 1986 by former funny-car driver Billy Meyer, and it was the first…
Thomas C. Neel · 5.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Ennis, where the town's name has roots right here. Thomas C. Neel, a Georgia native, settled near here in 1855 with his wife, Willia. Their cotton and wheat plantation became known as Will's Town,…
A Smokehouse on the Frontage Road · 5.5 mi
Alma is the kind of place you pass on the interstate without slowing down, but there is a reason to tap the brakes: Alma Smokehouse BBQ, a family-owned barbecue joint right on the I-45 frontage road. It has been smoking…
Alma · 5.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Alma, a town that owes its very name to a little girl. The first settlers arrived here way back in 1848. But it wasn't until 1871, when the railroad came through, that Alma officially got its…
From a Stagecoach Pond to a Railroad Town · 5.6 mi
Before there was a town, there was a watering hole. In the 1840s a Tennessee settler bought a thousand acres beside a lake called Willow Pond, which served as a stagecoach stop on the road between Waxahachie and…
The Black Dirt That Grew an Empire of Cotton · 5.7 mi
Alma sits on the Texas Blackland Prairie, a belt of dark, clay-rich soil that runs for about three hundred miles across the state. That black dirt is some of the most fertile farmland in the world, and it is the reason…
The Boll Weevil Line · 5.9 mi
The town of Bardwell owes its very existence to a railroad nicknamed 'The Boll Weevil Line.' In 1907, the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway laid its tracks right through here, and the town as you see it was born…
The Railway That Engineered a Town · 5.9 mi
The grid of streets you’re driving through in Bardwell isn’t accidental; it’s a direct result of a major engineering project from 1907: the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway. Building a railroad isn't just about laying…
Bardwell, TX · 5.9 mi
In the early 1880s, John W. Bardwell built a cotton gin one mile south of the present-day location, marking the beginning of the community. A school opened in 1892, and a post office was established in 1893. The town's…
Bardwell, TX · 5.9 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Ellis County, not far from Waxahachie, and you're passing through Bardwell. This community got its start in the early 1880s, not with a town square, but with a cotton gin built by John W.…
Herring, Benjamin Oscar · 5.9 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Ellis County, and right here in Bardwell, Texas, is where Benjamin Oscar Herring was born in 1889. He became a Baptist pastor and a university administrator, but his biggest impact might be at…
The Town That Followed the Railroad · 6.0 mi
Bardwell began in the 1880s around a cotton gin built by a man named John Bardwell on the Blackland Prairie. But the town you would find today is not quite where it started. When a railroad was routed through Ellis…
Burgers and Barbecue on Sycamore Street · 6.0 mi
A town of a few hundred people does not get many restaurants, so the couple Bardwell has, it earns. Out on Sycamore Street you will find the Bardwell Ice House, a local spot slinging burgers, wings, and cheesesteaks…
Alma, TX · 6.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Alma, Texas, a community with roots stretching back to the early 1840s. <break time="400ms"/> It all started with settlers like Thomas Smith, who claimed land around a spot called Willow Pond.…
Elm Branch Cemetery · 6.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Elm Branch Cemetery, a quiet resting place for generations of Ellis County settlers. The earliest marked burial here is Martha R. Tidwell, who died way back on November 28, 1877. This rural community…
Boren Cemetery · 7.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Boren Cemetery, a final resting place for folks who settled this part of Texas. Michael Boren and his wife Mary Ann arrived here from Kentucky in 1847, bringing their children and enslaved people…
Palmer, TX · 7.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Palmer, Texas, a town that owes its existence to the rumble of a train. <break time="400ms"/> In 1872, the Houston and Texas Central Railway laid tracks right through this area, and soon after, a…
Telico Church, The · 7.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Telico Church, a building with a story as enduring as its architecture. Built in 1867 as Kirkpatrick Presbyterian, this sanctuary has seen a lot of life. It even served as a Baptist church for…
Telico Cemetery · 7.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Telico Cemetery, a quiet reminder of early pioneer life right here in Ellis County. The first burial was Rev. William J. Kirkpatrick, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, who died way back on May 1st,…
First Baptist Church of Palmer · 7.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Palmer, and right here is the site of the First Baptist Church. It all started on November 17th, 1873, when Reverend T.H. Durham preached the first sermon. Early services were held in members'…
The Doctor Who Never Lived Here · 7.5 mi
Palmer is a namesake town, but not for a family that settled here. When the Houston and Texas Central Railway pushed its rails through northeastern Ellis County in 1872, the new stop was named for D. S. Palmer, a…
Twenty Thousand Bricks a Day · 7.5 mi
The dirt under Palmer turned out to be worth something. In 1902 Robert Smith founded the Palmer Press Brick Company here, betting on the heavy local clay of the Blackland Prairie. Brickmaking is applied materials…
When the Electric Cars Ran Through · 7.5 mi
Long before the interstate, Palmer had electric commuter service. In 1913 the Southern Traction Company completed a fifty-six-mile electric interurban line from Dallas to Corsicana, and the cars ran right through…
Harkey - Payne House · 7.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Harkey-Payne House, a home that's seen quite a bit of Texas history. Carpenter D. H. Harkey built the original four rooms around 1870. Then, in 1896, Dr. Johnson came along and added a whole…
First Christian Church of Palmer · 7.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Palmer, where a unique community effort in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1880</say-as> led to a shared church building. Members of the First Christian Church, originally organized here in…
The Crimson Limited · 8.2 mi
Imagine a time before Interstate 45, when the most modern way to travel was electric rail. Palmer sat on the Texas Electric Railway's Dallas-to-Corsicana line — sleek electric cars running down through Hutchins, Wilmer,…
Palmer, TX · 8.2 mi
In 1983, the town of Palmer gained a moment in the spotlight when parts of the film Tender Mercies were filmed here. Directed by Bruce Beresford, the movie tells the story of a country western singer. While most of the…
Richardson Cemetery · 8.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Reagor Springs, a place named for a family whose descendants are buried right here. John I. Richardson, a surveyor and Confederate veteran, and his wife Ann Elizabeth, are interred in this…
Rice Cemetery · 9.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving by the Rice Cemetery, a final resting place for folks who settled Navarro County in the late 1860s. The land was granted in 1868 by the interests of William Marsh Rice, the same guy who later founded Rice…
Haynie Memorial Methodist Church · 9.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Haynie Memorial Methodist Church. It all began in 1874 when the Rev. William Vaughn founded this congregation. The land itself was donated by W. M. Rice, a big name in railroads and…
Rice · 9.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Rice, a town that owes its very existence to a railroad and a flood. Back in the late 1860s, settlers fleeing a devastating flood at Porter's Bluff found a new home here. Then, in 1872, the…
Rice, TX · 9.5 mi
Rice is a staple food that has been cultivated for thousands of years, with Asian rice domesticated in China 13,500 to 8,200 years ago and African rice independently domesticated in West Africa about 3,000 years ago. In…
The Fortson Family · 9.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past The Fortson Family. Members of the Fortson family came to Texas from Mississippi and settled in Navarro County in the 1840s. Civil War veteran James T. Fortson wed Ida Clayton, daughter of another…
First Baptist Church of Rice · 9.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Rice, Texas, a town named for railroadman William Marsh Rice. Back in 1875, just three years after the railroad arrived, a group of locals gathered to start their own Baptist congregation. For…
Bristol School · 9.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Bristol School. The community's first school started in a multi-purpose building here in 1870, with the district officially established in 1877. Later schools were built in 1886 and…
The University Born from a Murder · 9.7 mi
The name of this town, Rice, is your entry point to a Gilded Age true-crime story. It was named for William Marsh Rice, a key investor in the railroad. In 1900, the 84-year-old millionaire was living in New York City…
The Train Car on the Ballfield · 9.7 mi
On a late October evening in two thousand ten, a tornado came through Rice and left a railroad car sitting on the high school baseball field. It was October twenty-fourth. The tornado touched down about four miles…
The Liberty Bell Rolled Through in the Dark · 9.7 mi
On a November night in nineteen fifteen, the Liberty Bell rolled through Rice on a flatcar, hours late, partly because people kept slowing the train down. That year the bell toured the country by rail, to the…
Bristol, TX · 9.7 mi
Bristol's history is marked by resilience and transformation. The community was first settled in the 1840s by Joshua Brock, who named it Brockville. After a devastating fire in the late 1800s, the town was relocated to…
The Chatfield Novelist · 9.7 mi
About five miles east of Rice, in the community of Chatfield, was born a writer whose first novel may have been the first Black nationalist novel in America. Sutton Elbert Griggs was born at Chatfield in eighteen…
The Interstate That Remade Rice · 9.7 mi
The road you are on right now, Interstate 45, is what most people notice about Rice. But this town is older than the highway by about ninety years, and it is named for a man worth knowing. Rice was settled in the late…
Rice, TX · 9.7 mi
The city's namesake is William Marsh Rice, who donated the land for a community school. He is also known for founding Rice University. The city's unofficial motto is 'The city so nice, they named it Rice.'
Does Wedding Rice Make Birds Explode? · 9.7 mi
Rice is named for William Marsh Rice, the railroad man, not the grain. But here's the grain's strangest myth. For years people have warned that rice thrown at weddings swells up inside birds and makes them explode. In…
The Texas Breeder Who Picked the Miracle Rice · 9.7 mi
Rice is named for a railroad man, not the grain. But the grain has a Texas hero. In March nineteen thirty one, Hank Beachell became the first rice breeder in Texas, at the federal and Texas A and M research station in…
The Rice That Broke the King · 9.7 mi
Rice is named for a railroad man, not the grain, but the grain stars in one of the most famous math legends ever told. The inventor of chess is offered any reward by his king. He asks for one grain on the first square…
Rice, TX (Navarro County) · 9.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving north on I-45, and right here in Navarro County is the town of Rice. It started in the late 1860s, but really took off when the Houston and Texas Central Railway arrived in 1872. The railroad owner…
Tubb, Ernest Dale · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Ellis County, not far from where Ernest Tubb, the legendary "Gold Chain Troubador," was born in Crisp back in 1914. He learned guitar on his own, got a break from Jimmie Rodgers' widow, and landed…
Texas National Research Laboratory Commission · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Ellis County, near the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, where a massive scientific endeavor once promised to put Texas on the map. Back in 1985, the Texas National Research Laboratory Commission was…
Burnham, TX · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
Burnham (Burnam) was on the Ascensión Gonsaba land grant six miles southwest of Ennis in southeastern Ellis County. In 1861 the House family received a portion of this grant in exchange for a slave called John. Edeline…
Lyman's Wagontrain · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
The five-day siege of Capt. Wyllys Lyman's wagontrain, sometimes known as the battle of the Upper Washita, was the longest and one of the most publicized engagements of the Red River War . During Col. Nelson A. Miles's…
Smith, Thomas Ingles · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
Thomas I. (often J.) Smith, Texas Ranger and Indian agent, was born on May 30, 1800, in Montgomery, Virginia, the son of Bird B. Smith and Rhoda Ingles. He reportedly experienced his first combat as a young boy during…
Telico, TX · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
Telico is on Farm Road 1181 five miles east of Ennis in east central Ellis County. The site that became Telico was settled before 1856 and, as it lay near the banks of the Trinity River, was originally called Trinity…
Nineteenth Texas Cavalry · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through North Texas, the heart of where the Nineteenth Texas Cavalry was formed during the Civil War. Fear of the draft pushed many men to join this mounted regiment in March of 1862, hoping to keep their…
Young, Harvey W. · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what is now Ellis County, a place that saw a lot of action in the 19th century. Harvey W. Young arrived here in 1842 and quickly became a key figure. He served as the sheriff of Ellis County in…
Forreston, TX · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
Forreston is on U.S. Highway 77 and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas tracks eight miles south of Waxahachie in south central Ellis County. At first the site was called Howe's Settlement, after William R. Howe, who arrived…
Trumbull, TX · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
Trumbull is near Interstate Highway 45 and U.S. Highway 75 ten miles north of Ennis in northeastern Ellis County. The area that became Trumbull was settled in 1872, when the Houston and Texas Central Railway established…
Beall, James Andrew [Jack] · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Ellis County, near Mountain Peak, the birthplace of James Andrew Beall. Born in 1866, Beall became a lawyer and a politician, serving in both the Texas Legislature and the U.S. Congress. But his…
Grady School, Site of · 10.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the old Grady School, just outside Palmer. It started in 1895, built to educate the children of the pioneer Farrar family. The first building sat on a hill overlooking Red Oak Creek. By…
Auburn, TX · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
Auburn was sixteen miles southwest of Waxahachie in western Ellis County. Some of its first settlers were from a caravan of 105 covered wagons that originated in Arkansas in 1852. They were attracted by the water supply…
Avalon, TX (Ellis County) · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
Avalon is an agricultural community located at State Highway 34 and Farm Road 55 about fourteen miles southeast of Waxahachie in southern Ellis County. Settlers began to arrive in the area along Chambers Creek in the…
Byrd, TX (Ellis County) · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
Byrd was on Farm Road 985 near Clear Creek sixteen miles southeast of Waxahachie and eight miles southwest of Ennis in Ellis County. The original settlers to the Byrd area included H. L. Parker, Dan Faulk, Rube Warren,…
Oak, TX · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
The Oak community, also known as Oak Branch, was on the Oak Branch of Chambers Creek three miles northeast of Maypearl in the southwest corner of Ellis County. Oak was once a prosperous farming community with a cotton…
Smith Cemetery · 10.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Smith Cemetery, established back in 1852. It started as a burial place for pioneers on a lonely knoll, but today it overlooks nine urban areas. Nancy Owen Smith founded this spot for her family and…
Rutherford's Crossing Bridge · 10.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Rutherford's Crossing Bridge, built back in 1919 by the Texas Bridge Company for just over 500 bucks. Before this Warren Pony truss bridge went up, locals had to ford Red Oak Creek. That crossing was…
Ellis County Farm Cemetery · 10.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Ellis County Farm Cemetery, also known as the Pauper Cemetery. This burial ground was part of a county farm established in the 1890s to support the needy. Between 1890 and 1946, it served as the…
Staff Sergeant Cochran's Fight in the Ho Bo Woods · 11.7 mi
The bridge on State Highway Thirty Four named for Staff Sergeant Robert E. Cochran honors a Vietnam soldier whose home was Rosser, Texas. Robert Edmund Cochran was born in Kaufman County in September nineteen forty one.…
Emhouse Baptist Church · 11.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Emhouse, Texas, home to a church that's been a cornerstone of this community for over a century. Organized in 1893 in the nearby Kelm community, it was first chartered as the Tinkle Baptist Church.…
Nash Public School · 11.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Forreston, and right here is the site of the Nash Public School. Back in 1873, pioneer Thomas Alexander Williams brought his family to Garden Valley and immediately set about establishing a school…
Emhouse, TX · 11.9 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Navarro County, near Corsicana. Right here is Emhouse, a town born from a railroad in 1906. Originally called Lyford, it was renamed Emhouse after Colonel Edward M. House, the railroad…
Rockett Christian Church · 12.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Rockett Christian Church, a building that's seen over a century of Texas history. The congregation started gathering way back in 1853, but they formally organized in 1894. This beautiful…
First Bapist Church of Waxahachie · 12.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Waxahachie, and right here is the site of the First Baptist Church, a community cornerstone for over 150 years. It all started way back in 1861, with just twelve members meeting in the local…
Graves Cemetery · 12.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Graves Cemetery, a final resting place for many of Ellis County's earliest pioneers. The first marked grave here belongs to Joseph Hinkle, who was laid to rest in 1859. His son-in-law, Robert Russell…
The Courthouse and the Sculptor's Revenge · 12.9 mi
The magnificent building in the center of the square is the Ellis County Courthouse — cornerstone laid on the Fourth of July, 1895, and finished in 1897. It's a masterpiece, but the real story is in the stone. Look…
Catching Lightning in a Camera · 12.9 mi
As you roll into Waxahachie, look toward the middle of the square, because you are about to see one of the most photographed landmarks in all of Texas. Rising over the downtown is the Ellis County Courthouse, a red…
Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Avalon (Avalon) · 12.9 mi
Avalon (Avalon, TX) placed on the 2A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Josh Novak (0.571 avg, 1 HR).
Waxahachie, TX · 12.9 mi
Waxahachie, a city in Ellis County, Texas, has a rich history that dates back to its founding in 1850. The city, which became the county seat, was incorporated in 1871. A pivotal moment in its development came in 1875…
Hollywood in the Heart of Texas · 12.9 mi
In 1983, Hollywood came to Waxahachie, but it felt more like a homecoming. Director Robert Benton, raised right here, chose his hometown for 'Places in the Heart,' a Depression-era story about a widow fighting to keep…
Oak Lawn School · 12.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the former site of Oak Lawn School, a beacon for Black education in Waxahachie. It started in 1887 as an elementary school, moving to this very location in 1893. By the turn of the century, high…
Avalon Missionary Baptist Church · 12.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Avalon Missionary Baptist Church, but this congregation started out as Mt. Nebo Baptist Church way back on July 6, 1879. Sixteen charter members, including families like the Martins, the…
Joshua Chapel, A.M.E. Church · 13.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Joshua Chapel, an important landmark in Waxahachie's African American community. Organized in 1876, this congregation was named for its first pastor, the Reverend Joshua Goins, a man who started many…
Staff Sgt. Felix M. Conde-Falcón Memorial Highway · 13.2 mi · Historical Marker
Honors Staff Sgt. Felix M. Conde-Falcón, Puerto Rican-born Army NCO killed Vietnam 1969 after assaulting four enemy bunkers solo. Awarded Medal of Honor in 2014 'Valor 24' review correcting WWII/Korea/Vietnam-era…
St. Joseph Catholic Church · 13.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past St. Joseph Catholic Church. The earliest Catholic settlers in Waxahachie were two brothers of English and American ancestry who arrived in 1859. A German Catholic family joined them in 1870 and a…
Bessie Coleman · 13.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the neighborhood where Bessie Coleman grew up and went to school, right here in Waxahachie. Born in 1892, Coleman dreamed of flying, but no American flight school would teach a black woman. So, she…
Strickland - Sawyer House · 13.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Waxahachie, and right here is a house with a story of Texas industry. In 1888, a widow built a home on this spot. Just one year later, it was bought by J.F. Strickland. He was a big deal—a…
Presiding Elder's House · 13.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the former home of a Methodist presiding elder in Waxahachie. Built in 1901, this house served as the parsonage for the district superintendent for over 40 years. Mrs. M.J. Cooke initially had the…
The Brick Capital of Texas · 13.5 mi
As you look around Ferris, try to imagine this town with giant smokestacks belching smoke into the sky, day and night. That was the reality for decades when Ferris was called the brick capital—of Texas, and by the 1950s…
Kicked Out for Boogie-Woogie · 13.5 mi
In nineteen fifty, a fifteen-year-old Pentecostal kid from Ferriday, Louisiana, enrolled at the Southwestern Bible Institute here in Waxahachie. The Assemblies of God school had moved onto the old Trinity University…
Desertron: The Biggest Machine That Texas Almost Built · 13.5 mi
Beneath the farmland near Waxahachie runs the ghost of what would have been the most powerful scientific instrument on Earth. In 1988 the federal government chose Ellis County for the Superconducting Super Collider,…
The Escape That Cost Him His Appeal · 13.5 mi
In July of nineteen oh five, a man named J. H. Taylor was assaulted and robbed near Waxahachie, and he died the next morning. A Black man named Albert Johnson was arrested, and because of threats of a lynching, officers…
The Garage Man Murder · 13.5 mi
On the night of the twenty seventh of February, nineteen fifteen, a young garage man named Jack Jones was beaten to death in Waxahachie. A man named Joe Larkins was arrested, tried within weeks and hanged that April,…
Lord Byron: The Golfer Born on an Ellis County Farm · 13.5 mi
One of the greatest golfers who ever lived was born on a farm near here. Byron Nelson came into the world on February 4, 1912, just outside Waxahachie in Ellis County, before his family moved toward Fort Worth where he…
The Octagon in the Park Where Will Rogers Played · 13.5 mi
In the shade of Getzendaner Memorial Park stands a great wooden octagon that once drew crowds of thousands for ideas, music, and oratory. This is the Chautauqua Auditorium, built in 1902 by the Waxahachie Chautauqua…
From Clay to City: The Science of a Ferris Brick · 13.5 mi
The success of Ferris wasn't just luck; it was a story of materials science. The town sits on a deposit of Taylor Marl, a clay with a near-perfect chemical composition for making strong, durable bricks. The…
Sixty-Five Straight · 13.5 mi
In the middle of the nineteen twenties, Waxahachie High School played baseball like almost nobody in the country. Starting in Paul Richards's freshman year, the Indians won sixty five games in a row, a streak the…
The Gingerbread City That Hollywood Kept Filming · 13.5 mi
These tree-shaded streets full of ornate Victorian houses are why Waxahachie calls itself the Gingerbread City, named for the lacy gingerbread woodwork dripping off the porches and gables that cotton money paid for. The…
The Hanging Ground Below the Compress · 13.5 mi
In March of nineteen oh four, the Waxahachie Daily Light explained where Brozier Smith would be hanged: down on the creek, a short distance below the cotton compress, near where another Black man, George Young, had been…
The Marshal Who Came to Help · 13.5 mi
On a Sunday evening, the seventeenth of December, eighteen eighty two, a Waxahachie deputy marshal tried to arrest a man named Charles Smith, and Smith ran, and the two traded shots. City Marshal John Spalding rode in…
The Hidden Thirty-Two · 13.5 mi
In January of nineteen forty four, a convict named J. B. Stephens escaped from the Retrieve prison farm, where he was serving time for robbery, and talked a Dallas man into driving him to Waxahachie by claiming he was…
Bonnie Parker's Husband Breaks Out · 13.5 mi
Bonnie Parker had a husband, and it wasn't Clyde Barrow. In nineteen twenty six she married her longtime sweetheart, Roy Thornton, and even after the marriage went bad, she refused to divorce him. Thornton got into…
The Fireproof Hotel With Spring Water and Spring Training · 13.5 mi
On the northeast corner of the courthouse square stands the four-story Rogers Hotel, built in 1912 on the very lot where town founder Emory Rogers raised his log cabin back in 1847. Designed by architect C.D. Hill, it…
Ferris, TX · 13.5 mi
The city of Ferris, Texas, was named in honor of Judge Justus Wesley Ferris of Waxahachie. He played a pivotal role in the establishment of the town when a local family deeded approximately 100 acres of land to four…
The Boy Whose Father Went to Bonnie and Clyde's Funerals · 13.5 mi
Robert Benton was born in Dallas and raised in Waxahachie, and he said he owed his love of movies to his father, a telephone company man who took the family to the picture show. His father had another thing he liked to…
The Day the Powder Mill Blew · 13.5 mi
Waxahachie never saw a Civil War battle, but it had a war industry, and it paid for it. In eighteen sixty two a man named William Rowen built a mill here to make gunpowder, which the Confederacy was desperately short…
The Fire That Ate a Fire Truck · 13.5 mi
On the third of October, twenty eleven, workers at the Magnablend plant on the north side of Waxahachie mixed a water treatment product they had made at least sixteen times before in batches of five hundred gallons or…
Backyard Neighbors · 13.5 mi
Two boys whose backyards met here in Waxahachie both ended up in the music business. Bill Ham was born in nineteen thirty seven, went to school here, and went on to North Texas. In nineteen sixty eight he saw a Houston…
The Night the Hotel Burned · 13.5 mi
Between three and four on a Sunday morning in November of nineteen eleven, the night watchman on his rounds spotted a fire in Levi Adair's tailor shop, under the north wing of the Rogers Hotel. Minutes later, gasoline…
Buffalo Creek and the County Seat Emory Rogers Gave Away · 13.5 mi
The town you're entering took its name straight off the water. Waxahachie comes from a Native American name for the creek running along the south edge of the new settlement, usually translated as buffalo creek or cow…
Site of a Confederate Powder Mill · 13.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of a Confederate powder mill, erected back in 1862 by William Rowen. Just a year later, on April 29th, 1863, a massive explosion rocked this spot. The blast destroyed the mill and tragically…
The Electric Railway Over the Railroads · 13.5 mi
For more than thirty years you could ride an electric train from Waxahachie to Dallas. In nineteen twelve the Strickland interests bought the twenty eight mile electric line from Dallas to Waxahachie and named it the…
The University That Left for San Antonio · 13.5 mi
Trinity University spent four decades in Waxahachie. The Presbyterian college was founded in eighteen sixty nine, and its leaders talked for years about a better location before, in nineteen oh two, they moved it here,…
Born on the Kitchen Cabinet · 13.5 mi
Congressman Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri was born here in Waxahachie in nineteen forty four, and he has written about exactly where. Until he was seven, his family lived in a two room shack in Waxahachie with no running…
Lamont Moore Puts On the Cape · 13.5 mi
Waxahachie's first state football championship came in nineteen ninety two, in the Class Four A final, and it came from behind. The Indians trailed A and M Consolidated late and surged back to win twenty eight to twenty…
From a Waxahachie Choir to Quincy Jones · 13.5 mi
Tevin Campbell started singing gospel in a Baptist church here in Waxahachie when he was about four years old. A friend of his mother's got him an audition with the jazz flutist Bobbi Humphrey, and he sang for her over…
Three Films in Four Years · 13.5 mi
In the early nineteen eighties the playwright Horton Foote kept bringing his movies to Waxahachie. Tender Mercies was shot here and in Palmer between November and December of nineteen eighty one. It was Foote's first…
The Munsters Live in Waxahachie · 13.5 mi
Somewhere in Waxahachie is a house that looks like it belongs at thirteen thirteen Mockingbird Lane. Sandra and Charles McKee built a replica of the Munster family mansion from the nineteen sixties TV show, and Sandra…
The Taxidermist Who Counted the Last Buffalo · 13.5 mi
Waxahachie's name is often said to come from an Indian word meaning cow or buffalo, so here's a buffalo story. In eighteen eighty six, William Temple Hornaday, the Smithsonian's chief taxidermist, went to Montana to…
Hancock Building · 13.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Hancock Building in Waxahachie, a Victorian commercial structure built in 1890. Look for the decorative brickwork and cast iron columns on the facade. It was purchased in 1907 by William Pitt…
1889 Masonic Lodge Hall · 13.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the 1889 Masonic Lodge Hall in Waxahachie. Look at this three-story brick building, topped with a tin cornice decorated with Masonic symbols. It was built in 1889 for Waxahachie Lodge No. 90. The…

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Ennis, Texas

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Lummus, Andrew Jackson, Jr. [Jack]

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Jack Lummus

National Polka Festival

Coronado, Sam Zaragosa, Jr.

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