Hawkins House
Waxahachie, Ellis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Benjamin Franklin Hawkins, a member of the Peters Colony who was instrumental in the organization of Ellis County, built a one-story house here in 1851. It was incorporated into a two-story house in the 1880s, and was remodeled into its current Colonial Revival appearance by Hawkins' son, Frank Lee, in 1903. Prominent features include its large fluted Corinthian columns, two-story balcony with balustrade, and decorative dentils.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Benjamin Franklin Hawkins, a member of the Peters Colony that drew settlers to North Texas, helped organize Ellis County and built a one-story house on this site in 1851. Over the following decades the home grew—expanded to two stories in the 1880s and remodeled by his son into an elegant Colonial Revival residence in 1903, complete with fluted Corinthian columns and a second-story balcony. Its layered construction reads like a timeline of the family's rising fortunes.
Why it matters
The Hawkins House embodies the settlement of North Texas through the Peters Colony land grants and the prosperity that followed, its evolving architecture charting one family's journey across half a century.
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Related people
- · Benjamin Franklin Hawkins
- · Frank Lee Hawkins
Themes & tags
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