The Southern Pacific Railroad in Ennis

Ennis advertised itself with a slogan, the Handbook of Texas says: Where Railroads and Cotton Fields Meet. By 1890 the town had two banks, a cotton compress, three cottonseed depositories, a gin, a fruit-canning business, a brickyard, an opera house and two weekly papers. By 1914 it counted eleven churches, four banks, four gins, a cottonseed oil mill, a mattress factory, an ice factory and two newspapers. In 1930 it listed 205 businesses. The plaque dates Ennis to 1887; the Handbook has the railroad arriving in 1871 and the town platted in 1872.

What the plaque says

The Southern Pacific Railroad in Ennis In 1887 the City of Ennis was established at this site, the northern terminus of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad (later part of the Southern Pacific Railroad). The city is named after early railroad official Cornelius Ennis. Expansion by the railroad at this location in 1891 spurred decades of agricultural, commercial, and industrial growth. Completion of lakes for the railroad's use and the construction of shops, a roundhouse, and offices earned Ennis renown as the junction of railroads and cotton fields. The lakes and several railroad buildings remain.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ellis County Courthouse — 13 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.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 19 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.
• Cedar Ridge Preserve — 29 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.

More markers nearby

• Town of Ennis — steps away
• Railroads in Ennis — steps away
• Katie Daffan — steps away
• Jay Justin Clarke — steps away