Wilson, Ammie, House

Erected in 1891 by Hunter T. Farrell, a prosperous farmer, and businessman, and later the home of Ammie Wilson, a nationally renowned sheep woman, the Ammie Wilson House at 1900 W. 15th Street in Plano, Texas is an example of the late Victorian-style as interpreted in the farm homes of Plano and North Texas and is one of only a few of these that remain. With its outbuildings, it is a reminder of the almost vanished agricultural foundations of community life in Plano and the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.

In 1941, Miss Ammie Estelle Wilson, 1880-1972, 61 years old, entered the sheep breeding business, until her entry into a totally male-dominated occupation. During the years 1941-1972, "Miss Ammie" became the most successful and renowned pure-bred sheep breeder and show a woman in the United States and part of Canada, and the only one in Texas. Her unique position in sheep breeding and the show has been recognized locally, state-wide, nationally, and internationally. Having successfully exhibited her exceptional sheep up until her late eighties, she and her achievements as a woman in the sheep business have never been equaled. Substantial evidence points to the year 1891 as the year of construction. This has been derived from oral testimony from family members, Plano residents, the deed showing the purchase of land by Hunter Farrell, and the Farrell's marriage license.

The house has retained its Victorian style and its basic design. The addition of a very early date of the gingerbread-decorated veranda has enhanced the Victorian style and significance of the property as has the enclosure of the west porches for baths; these were both done pre-1900 by the same master carpenter who built the original Victorian structure and all detailing was perfectly duplicated. The louvered blinds used to enclose the sleeping porch and small back porch could be removed to restore the original appearance. Operated as a farm by the same family continuously from 1891-1972, the house served as the Farrell home. It is planned that the farmstead will function in the future much as it has during the last five years: as a cultural and civic center and as a living museum of the agricultural heritage of the area.

One of Plano's two extant Victorian farmhouses, this house is typical of the many fine old farm homes which once graced this highly fertile area of the Blackland Prairies of North Texas and is one of the few remaining Victorian farm homes in North Texas.2 These homes, built by prosperous owner-operators of the highly productive farms in the area, have almost all been destroyed, as have the farms, by the northward growth of the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex.

Plano has become a microcosm of the larger American society, with its once stable and permanent agricultural community foundations now replaced by commercial and industrial ones, and with its growing populace in constant flux. It is presented with a unique opportunity and responsibility to share its rich heritage by preserving the Wilson farmstead as a reminder of the agricultural roots of the community which are common to the whole American society and are rapidly being swept away. It is hoped that by so doing there may be offered to those thousands moving in and out of our community a sense of a common heritage and destiny that make us all uniquely Americans and bind us together as a people.