West End Historic District

The West End Historic District includes the city's finest collection of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century residences. This neighborhood, which centers along the 400 to 1300 blocks of W. Main Street, has been home to many of the town's most prominent citizens. The dwellings reflect the wealth and social status of their owners. In addition to the 135 domestic structures, the district includes four boarding or apartment houses, two small parks, one commercial warehouse, and three institutional structures. The well-preserved historic structures and the remarkably small number of post-1935 buildings contribute greatly to the historic character and ambiance of the neighborhood. Of the 141 sites within the district, 113, or about eighty percent are classified as contributing sites, see Definition of Categories.

The district lies to the west of the town's commercial center and as early as the 1880s was known as the West End. Some of the earliest settlers to Waxahachie built residences in this area, although none of the middle nineteenth-century dwellings remain in their original form. B. F. Hawkins' original house (circa 1850) was substantially remodeled in the 1890s and again in the 1910s. That house (Site No. 1254) stands at 210 S. Hawkins. Likewise, the Sweatt House, originally built in the 1860s, was altered in about 1885 to its present form.

While the West End Historic District includes parts of the original town site, most of the district falls in the Town and West End additions. The Town Addition was established soon after the original town site was surveyed in 1850. The West End was created in 1889 by the Waxahachie Investment Co., with R. G. Phillips, I. A. Ferris, and Osce Goodwin serving as trustees. Platted into a system of generous lots and public parks, the area developed under the impetus of the garden suburb movement. The success of the endeavor was fostered by the extension of streetcar service into the area and by the popular belief that a more suburban environment was socially, morally, and aesthetically preferable. The period's aesthetic ideals dictated the principle of natural houses integrated into a gently controlled setting which is evidence of the length of the development. The original plan included lots that generally measured 60 by 100 feet. Perhaps the most significant feature of the addition was the small park (Site No. 496) or Ellipse, as it is called, that pierces the 1200 and 1300 blocks of W. Main Street. In 1890 an article in the Ellis County Mirror noted that "the West End Addition Park is already one of the attractions of our city and when the Park grounds are put in grass, which we suppose will be done, this will be one of the most attractive places around for picnics and other purposes we have" (Ellis County Genealogical Society, Volume XVIII: 72).

Local streetcar service expanded to the area by 1890 with the tracks running along W. Main Street. At first, the cars were mule driven, but later they were powered by electricity. The western terminus of the system was located near the intersection of Grand and Main streets, and storage sheds and repair shops stood nearby.

In 1895 prominent banker H. W. Getzendaner purchased land on which the old Masonic Academy once stood and that same year donated the property to the city for use as a park until funds were available to construct a library. The land remained a park for several years until the death of Nicholas P. Sims, one of the county's wealthiest and most successful farmers. In his will, Sims bequeathed money to establish a trust fund to construct and maintain a local library. S. Wemyes Smith, a Fort Worth architect, was hired to design the Neoclassical Revival facility, on which work began in 1903 and was completed by 1905. The Sims Library and Lyceum, as it was known, proved a great source of civic pride and was, no doubt, one of the finest such institutions in the state at that time. Sympathetic additions were completed in later years.

As the West End developed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of the town's most prominent citizens lived in the neighborhood. Some, such as the B. F. Hawkins family, had resided in the area since the mid-1800s. Others, such as Judge Oscar Dunlap, were new to the area. Dunlap, former county judge and longtime president of Citizen's National Bank, erected one of the town's most impressive Queen Anne-style residences. It stands at 1203 W. Main (Site No. 610). The Dunlap property also included a servant's house behind the main residence. This auxiliary structure was the home of Dunlap's servant, Ely Green, whose autobiography, Ely Too Black, Too White, was published in 1970. A selected list of others who built or resided in homes within the West End includes Laura Spalding, whose life served as the basis for the film Places in the Heart, lumbermen J. B. and 0. B. Dunaway, contractor Dennis Mahoney, businessmen F. C. Rogers, Edward Chaska, and James Harrison, and attorney P. A. Chapman.