Memories of Ennis

These old images, from the Ennis Historical Society’s
archives at the Ennis Public Library, depict various
interesting scenes about town in the early 1900s.
The above picture is of a group of men relaxing on
the roof of an unidentified club, c. 1911. Three of the
men are J. Baldridge, W. D. Ferris and a Mr. Abrams.
The photo at right depicts another set of men posing
downtown in March 1915 (the Rowe Building can be
seen in the background). And the picture below is a
shot of Main Street’s west side in around 1910.

A local man’s love of trains has led to research about the part Ennis played in Texas railroad history, in particular the Interurban electric trains that connected the Bluebonnet City to Dallas and other stops between 1913 and the 1940s.

Larry Cook is a former railroader and, although he’s retired now, his fascination with the history of the trains that defined his career for 40 years hasn’t left him.

The move toward a more moral society was on such a roll that even newspaper cartoons caused controversy in Ennis’s early days. In 1906 a group of concerned female citizens, calling themselves The Mothers Club, publicly protested against the publication of the funny pages in local papers. After a lecture called “How Can We Cultivate a Taste for Good Literature in Our Homes?” it was unanimously agreed that newspaper cartoons “were detrimental to clean language and the recognition of pure art and real humor.”

The Ennis City Jail was either unguarded or somebody was asleep on the job in 1914 when eight prisoners escaped by “prying off the door.” The incident made national news.