William L. and Emma Hawkins House
Midlothian, Ellis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
William L. Hawkins, the son of area pioneer settlers, and his wife Emma (Barker) purchased land and a house here in 1892. They removed the original structure in 1901 and hired local wood artisan Will Price to build this house. Made of imported cypress timber, it was completed in 1903. It features an asymmetrical Queen Anne design and ornate wood trim hand carved by Price. Prominent businessman Tom Dees and his wife Mattie (Hawkins) purchased the house in 1905, and in 1913 the property was acquired by Edward and Mollie Byrd. It remained in the Byrd family until 1957.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
William L. Hawkins, son of pioneer Ellis County settlers, and his wife Emma bought land here in 1892 and in 1901 hired local wood artisan Will Price to build a new home, completed in 1903 from imported cypress. Its asymmetrical Queen Anne design showcased Price's ornate hand-carved trim. The house passed through the Dees and Byrd families, remaining in the Byrd family until 1957.
Why it matters
The craftsmanship of a local artisan preserved in this Queen Anne home reflects the skilled woodworking traditions that shaped small-town Texas architecture.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William L. Hawkins
- · Emma Barker Hawkins
- · Will Price
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Trotter House
Midlothian, TX
Jake Sewell bought these Midlothian lots in 1912, and after marrying Nettie Witherspoon in 1915 the couple built this house—likely funded by dividends from the Hog Creek Oil Company—sometime after 1918. In the 1930s Nettie rented rooms to the town's single women teachers. For more than half a century the home belonged to Clyde and Cloma Trotter; Cloma, a civic leader who became Midlothian's first female mayor, left it to the Salvation Army. Its Arts and Crafts and Prairie School design features a wide porch, porte-cochere, oak floors, Rookwood tiles, and a curved staircase.
Mansfield Mill
Mansfield, TX
Partners Julian Feild and Ralph Mann, who had met in Harrison County around 1850, came south of Fort Worth and in the winter of 1859–60 raised a three-story steam-powered grist mill on the ruins of an earlier one. The mill drew business from San Antonio to the Oklahoma Territory, and the town that grew up around it — first "Mansfeild," then Mansfield — took its founders' names. During the Civil War the Confederacy claimed a share of its output, and afterward federal contracts kept its flour moving to army forts.
Trippet-Shive House
Waxahachie, TX
Completed in 1896 for banker and civic leader H. W. Trippet, this Waxahachie residence was later home to Walter E. Shive, owner of a thriving seed, grain, and coal business. Blending Queen Anne and Shingle styles, it typifies the substantial houses that went up in the neighborhood at the turn of the century, with cedar fish-scale shingles, a wraparound porch, and an octagonal tower.
Dunlap - Simpson House
Waxahachie, TX
Built in 1890-91, this exuberant Queen Anne Revival house—complete with hexagonal and octagonal rooms—was the home of Judge Oscar E. Dunlap, a Waxahachie banker, industrialist, and civic leader. Dunlap founded the Sims Library and championed the Good Roads movement, and the home later passed through a succession of prominent local families. It stands as a showpiece of late-nineteenth-century architectural ambition.