John Faires House
McKinney, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This home was constructed in 1854 by John Faires (1801-1878), who had come to McKinney from Tennessee three years earlier. Near his home he built a Blacksmith Shop, where he worked skillfully with metal and wood. The hand chiseled front door of Faires' home reflects his Woodworking Craftsmanship. The Greek Revival Style House, originally located one block West, remained in the Faires Family until 1975.** Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1984***
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1854 by John Faires, a Tennessee man who had reached the young town of McKinney only three years earlier, this Greek Revival home reflected the skills that made him valuable on the Texas frontier. Faires kept a blacksmith shop nearby, working metal and wood with a craftsman's hand — a talent still visible in the hand-chiseled front door. The house stayed in the Faires family for more than a century, until 1975.
Why it matters
It is a tangible link to the artisan-settlers whose everyday trades — smithing, carpentry, milling — turned raw North Texas prairie into working communities.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John Faires
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Chambersville
McKinney, TX
Elisha and Peggy Ann Chambers brought their seven children to Texas in 1847, claiming headrights in Collin and Dallas Counties and donating land for a cemetery and school that seeded the community named in their honor. By the turn of the century Chambersville thrived with a sawmill, cotton gin, blacksmith, post office, and stores, while its school doubled as auditorium, dance hall, and even a roller rink. During World War I the Red Cross worked out of the school as local women rolled bandages for the troops.
Murphy Community
Murphy, TX
Settled in the early 1840s by pioneers from a dozen states drawn to the fertile Blackland Prairie, this community farmed and ranched the tall-grass, black-soil country for well over a century. It took the name Murphy in 1888 when William Murphy granted right-of-way to the St. Louis Southwestern Railroad, though the city itself wasn't formally established until 1958. Founding Maxwell, McMillen, and Murphy families built the stores and schools of an agrarian town that faded by 1970—only to revive in the 1980s as a Dallas suburb.
Brown Cottage
Wylie, TX
Built in 1889, the Folk Victorian Brown Cottage was the first Wylie home of businessman William Thomas Brown and his wife Martha, who moved to the new railroad town in the mid-1880s to help build it up. An early alderman and developer of the Brown & Burns Addition, Brown ran a mercantile store serving the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe railroad and area farmers. In 1903 the "little white house" was moved to make way for a grander family home, and it remains one of Wylie's most intact original residences.
Blue Ridge
Blue Ridge, TX
Named for the blue-flowering grass that hazed its hilltop between Desert and Pilot Grove Creeks, Blue Ridge drew pioneers beginning in the 1830s, including Republic of Texas land-grantee Matthew Mowry and the area's first doctor, W.C. Holmes. The Moyers brothers opened the first store—a one-room log cabin—in the 1870s, soon joined by a school, a Masonic lodge, cotton gins, a bank, and shops around the town square. Farmers and ranchers raising cotton, corn, and cattle sustained the town, whose 1937 high school was built with WPA labor.