Marker Number: 535
Marker Text:
William 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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