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Thomas and Mattie Brown House, Wylie,
Texas
Corner of Ballard and Jefferson Streets
Photo courtesy Mike
Price, 2008 |
Historical
Marker Text
Thomas
and Mattie Brown HouseWilliam
Thomas Brown (1848-1907), a native of Illinois, married Martha (Mattie) J. Housewright
in 1871. They moved to Wylie
shortly after its establishment on a newly constructed railroad line from Paris
to Dallas built by the Gulf, Colorado,
and Santa Fe Railroad company in 1886. Thomas and his business partner John H.
Burns purchased over 31 acres, which included this site, from Nancy and James
Vaughn Russel in 1887.
The Browns secured this home site in 1888 and replaced
their original residence with this ornate Queen Anne style structure in 1905.
The house, with six rooms downstairs and one large room upstairs, exhibits an
unusual variety of material, elaborate roofscape and asymmetrical plan typical
of the Victorian era. The gables of the four dormers are covered with original
fishscale shingles. Prominent features include a wraparound porch with slender
paired doric columns, dentil frieze, palladian windows and polygonal bays with
cutaway corners on their side elevations.
Although Thomas Brown died just
two years after the house was built, Mrs. Mattie Brown continued to live here
until her death in 1922. The house was then inherited by the Browns' adopted daughter,
Tennie Lee (Rattaree) Creel and remained in her family until 1931.
Recorded
Texas Historic Landmark - 1992 |
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