Harris-Savage Home
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The roots of the Harris-Savage House go back to 1843, when pioneers William W. Cochran (1807-1853), the first Dallas County Clerk, and his wife, Nancy Jane Hughes (1817-1877), lived in Peters Colony. Their grandson, William (Will) Randolph Harris (1877-1948), was born in Farmers Branch in Dallas County. After graduating high school, Will studied law under his first cousin R.E.L. Knight and J.L. Harris of the firm Harris & Knight. He was admitted to the Texas bar in 1900 and remained with what became Thompson, Knight, Harris, Wright and Weisburg his entire legal career. Will and his wife, Minnie Beulah Bookhout (1881-1955), moved into this home in 1921. Will had a distinguished career, including the successful impeachment of Gov. James “Pa” Ferguson, and Minnie was an active clubwoman. Dorothy Harris Savage (1918-1999) inherited the home from her mother, Minnie, and with her husband, former Dallas Mayor Wallace Savage (1912-2000), continued the family legacy there. The Savages were founders of the Dallas Academy, served on numerous civic and philanthropic boards and contributed greatly to the historic preservation movement in Dallas with involvement in the Historic Preservation League (now Preservation Dallas). With their help, this house and area were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, the first listed district in Dallas. The 1917 Mission style residence boasts two curvilinear parapets; one defines the central entry to the front porch and the other enhances a large gabled attic dormer with palladian window. Otherwise, the house design owes much to the prairie style with horizontal lines, triple windows, square brick piers and widely overhanging eaves. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark – 2013
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Harris-Savage House traces a Dallas family line back to 1843 pioneers, but its story centers on attorney Will Randolph Harris, who moved into this Mission-style home in 1921 after a career that included the successful impeachment of Governor James "Pa" Ferguson. His daughter Dorothy and her husband, former Dallas Mayor Wallace Savage, later carried on the family's civic legacy, founding the Dallas Academy and helping lead the city's historic-preservation movement. Their efforts helped make this house and neighborhood the first National Register historic district in Dallas in 1974.
Why it matters
The home links a prominent legal and political family to the birth of Dallas's preservation movement, showing how private citizens fought to save the architectural heritage of a fast-growing American city.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The land beneath this Dallas home reaches back to the earliest Anglo settlement of the county, to the Peters Colony era of the 1840s, when pioneers first put down roots in what would become one of Texas's great cities. From those frontier beginnings the area grew, generation by generation, into settled urban Dallas.
By the early twentieth century, Dallas was a prosperous, ambitious city, and its comfortable neighborhoods filled with the substantial homes of its professional class — lawyers, civic leaders, clubwomen. The house remembered here, built in the 1910s, belongs to that confident Progressive-era Dallas.
Decades later the same neighborhood would sit at the center of a very different movement — the fight to preserve historic architecture against the pressures of a fast-growing city. This home bridges those two Dallas eras, the building-up and the saving.
People & events
The family line runs from pioneer stock — an early county clerk and his wife — down to their grandson, Will Randolph Harris, born in the county and trained in the law under family connections before joining the Texas bar in 1900. He spent his entire career with one distinguished firm, and among the milestones the marker records is his role in the successful impeachment of Governor James "Pa" Ferguson. Will and his wife, Minnie, an active clubwoman, moved into this home in 1921.
The next chapter belonged to their daughter, Dorothy Harris Savage, who inherited the house from her mother. With her husband, former Dallas Mayor Wallace Savage, she carried the family's civic tradition forward. The Savages helped found the Dallas Academy, served on numerous civic and philanthropic boards, and became leaders in the city's historic-preservation movement.
Their efforts had a lasting result: with their help, the house and its surrounding area were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 — the first listed historic district in Dallas. The residence itself, dating to 1917, blends Mission-style flourishes — curvilinear parapets, a Palladian-windowed dormer — with the horizontal lines, triple windows, and overhanging eaves of the prairie style.
Its place in the American story
The Harris-Savage House connects a single Dallas family to two large American stories. One is the reach of law and politics: an attorney whose career touched a governor's impeachment, and a son-in-law who led the city as mayor, place this home within the civic life of a major American city.
The other, and perhaps the more enduring, is the historic-preservation movement that swept the country in the mid-twentieth century. As cities modernized and old buildings fell, private citizens organized to save the architecture that gave their communities character. The Savages were among those citizens, and the neighborhood's landmark listing in 1974 marks a milestone in that national effort.
That this became the first listed historic district in Dallas gives the home a founding role in how one American city learned to value and protect its own past.
If you visit
Look first at the house itself, a 1917 residence that mixes Mission and prairie styling. The inscription points you to the tells: two curvilinear parapets — one crowning the entry to the front porch, the other topping a large gabled dormer with a Palladian window — set against the low, horizontal lines, triple windows, and wide eaves of the prairie tradition.
Knowing the home helped launch Dallas's first historic district adds a layer to the visit: you are looking not only at a handsome old house but at a cornerstone of the movement that saved others like it. Read the marker with the whole block in mind, not just the single façade.
As a private residence, it is best enjoyed from the public sidewalk. Fold it into a walking look at the surrounding historic district, where the architecture the Savages fought to protect still lines the streets.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Will Randolph Harris
- · Wallace Savage
- · Dorothy Harris Savage
Themes & tags
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