N. P. Sims Library and Lyceum

The library began with a judge's books. The Handbook of Texas says the Nicholas P. Sims Public Library opened on April 5, 1905, on land donated by W. H. Getzendaner, and that it grew from Judge O. E. Dunlap's own collection. Dunlap, named a trustee in the plaque, was a longtime president of the Waxahachie National Bank, according to the West End Historic District's listing, which also records the Dunlap-Simpson House of about 1891, a Classical Revival home built for him by a Connecticut contractor, Dennis Mahoney. The library itself sits inside that National Register district.

What the plaque says

N. P. Sims Library and Lyceum A pioneer among privately - endowed Texas libraries. Situated in Getzendaner Park, which had been donated to the city on Dec. 31, 1895, by Capt. W.H. Getzendaner (1834-1909), and attorney, Confederate veteran, banker, and president of the Dallas & Waco Railroad. Nicholas P. Sims (1806-1902), a native of Virginia who settled in 1833 in Ellis County and prospered as a farmer and investor, endowed the library and lyceum in 1902, naming as trustees his stepsons O.E. and S. W. Dunlap, along with George H. Cunningham. Architect S. Wemyes Smith of Fort Worth designed the Neo-Classical building, using Carrara marble and other fine structural materials. The library opened in April 1905. Books and reading rooms were on the first floor, with the auditorium, athenaeum, anterooms, and stage for performing arts on the second floor. Braden and Jones designed the wings. The west wing was financed (1958) by an Ellis Countian, the talented inventor, J. Harry Phillips (1872-1962). Industrialist W.H. Larkin and Mrs. Larkin financed (1965) the east wing. Other major gifts were received from sale of the home bequeathed by 1938-52 city secretary Robert A Watson and Mrs. Watson, and from sale of the farm of Judge Oscar E. Dunlap. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ellis County Courthouse — 0.3 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Cedar Ridge Preserve — 18 mi
  A 633-acre Audubon Dallas preserve at the western edge of Dallas County, with about nine miles of trails through prairie, woodland and escarpment hills.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 31 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.

More markers nearby

• Paul Richards Park — 0.2 mi
• Site of a Confederate Powder Mill — 0.3 mi
• Central Presbyterian Church — 0.4 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Waxahachie — 0.5 mi