Milliken House
Lewisville, Denton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built by William Dickerson Milliken, born in Paducah, Ky., Nov. 1, 1848; married Margaret Crockett Young. Children: W. D., Jr.; Samuel Ramsey, M.D.; Thomas Gillespie; Martin Horace; Maggie Bell (Mrs. Edens); Charles Young; Elizabeth Angelina; John Barnes. After going into mercantile business in Lewisville in 1877, Milliken built this house, 1878. Framing is native oak. Siding was freighted from Port City of Jefferson, in East Texas. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1969
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
William Dickerson Milliken, a Kentucky-born merchant, opened a store in Lewisville in 1877 and the following year built this frame house of native oak. The siding tells its own story of a pre-railroad economy: it was freighted overland from Jefferson, the busy riverport of East Texas. Home to Milliken, his wife Margaret, and their eight children, the house earned Recorded Texas Historic Landmark status in 1969.
Why it matters
The house is a tangible record of how a frontier merchant family built permanence in North Texas, and of the freighting networks that moved building materials before railroads reached the interior.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Dickerson Milliken
- · Margaret Crockett Young
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bartonville
Bartonville, TX
Bartonville grew from post-Texas Revolution settlement along Denton Creek, where fertile sandy soil drew subsistence farmers raising peanuts, cotton, and grain. In 1881 brothers Bentley and James Barton bought ten acres at a busy crossroads; Bentley's store and gristmill prospered, and the settlement soon shed the name "Barton's Mill" for Bartonville. The store remained the town's hub through incorporation, disincorporation, and reincorporation over 130 years, closing only in 2013.
Christal House
Denton, TX
James "Jim" Christal was raised by his widowed mother on the Texas frontier and started as a horse wrangler at twelve, eventually cowboying on his cousin Burk Burnett's famous 6666 Ranch. Injuries brought him back to Denton, where he founded the Golden Hoof Farm, ran the Alliance Milling Company, led the Exchange National Bank, and sat on the board of the college that became the University of North Texas. His 1906 High Victorian Italian Villa home, built by Frank Craft, still stands as a monument to his rise.
Mounts House
Denton, TX
Robert Noble Mounts and his wife Nannie built this Queen Anne home in 1898 on land that had been part of the family's Denton County farm, settled after his father relocated the family mercantile to the county seat in 1857. His mother Mattie founded Denton's first Sunday school and first kindergarten. Robert himself became a leading cattleman—managing the vast Gregg Ranch and later owning an 84,000-acre spread near Hereford—helping open Texas cattle markets to the north.
City of Krum
Krum, TX
Krum grew from an 1876 pioneer settlement known as the Jackson community into a proper town in 1886, when the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway bought land and named the station for railroad official Charles K. Krum. Stores, churches, and a post office quickly followed, but it was the region's rich soil that made Krum famous, drawing renown as one of the largest inland grain markets of the early 1900s. Local wheat even won the grand prize for 'Rainbow Flour' at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.