DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the Texas Historical Commission put on the marker for Brown Cottage in Collin County — so let the record show where this story comes from. Now, every town has that one little house that just refuses to disappear. In Wylie, Texas, that house is the Brown Cottage — and friend, it has been quietly outlasting everybody since 1889.
To understand why that matters, you have to go back to 1886, the year Wylie itself got established. The ink was barely dry on the town's name when William Thomas Brown and his wife Martha — everybody called her Mattie — packed up and moved in. They didn't come to spectate.
They came to build. And build they did. By 1887, Brown had already filed for record the Brown and Burns Addition Subdivision, making him one of Wylie's first developers before most folks had even decided to stay.
That same year — same year — his neighbors voted him in as one of Wylie's first Aldermen. The man was movin. On top of all that, he ran a mercantile store that served the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad and the farmers spread out across the surrounding area.
William Thomas Brown was, by any honest measure, the kind of man a young town leans on. And it was in 1889 that he and Mattie built the little house. Folk Victorian in style, with Carpenter Gothic detailing — which is a fancy way of saying it was modest but it had character.
Cypress siding. A bay window catching the light just so. A cross gabled roof.
An asymmetrical floor plan that gave the whole thing a kind of charm you don't design so much as discover. People took to calling it the little white house, and that name stuck like good sense. The Browns lived in that little white house on Ballard Avenue for sixteen years.
Sixteen years of railroad men buying dry goods, of farmers coming in from the fields, of Aldermen business and family business all tangled together the way life tends to get. Then, in 1903, something interesting happened. The Browns were getting ready to build a larger family home — what would come to be known as the Thomas and Mattie Brown House, a place grand enough to earn its own Texas Historic Landmark designation in 1992.
But before they could raise that new house, they needed the cottage out of the way. So they moved it. Picked the whole thing up and set it down on the northeast corner of West Jefferson and North Jackson Avenue, where it stands to this day.
Two years later, in 1905, the new home was finished, and Thomas and Mattie moved on up. But here's the thing about that little white house — they never let it go. It stayed in the family.
When the Browns passed, it went to their daughter, Tennie L. Creel, in 1926. When the Creels themselves passed away in 1945, the estate was settled, and a man named Paul Pearson took ownership.
Paul Pearson held onto that cottage for forty-nine years. Forty-nine years. Some people are devoted to their dogs.
Paul Pearson was devoted to this house. The Texas Historical Commission made it a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 2017 — and the marker notes, plain as day, that the Brown Cottage is one of the most prominent original residences still intact from when Wylie was established back in 1886. A town is built by people who show up early and stay long.
William Thomas Brown showed up in 1886. And somehow, more than a hundred and thirty years later, the little white house he built is still on the corner, still standin, still telling anybody who'll listen exactly how Wylie got started. That's not just history.
That's stubbornness of the finest kind.
What the marker says
One of the oldest homes of Wylie, the 1889 Brown Cottage was the first home in Wylie of businessman William Thomas Brown and Martha (Mattie) J. (Housewright) Brown. The Browns moved to Wylie shortly after its establishment in 1886 to help build the community. Brown was one of Wylie’s first developers with the Brown & Burns Addition Subdivision, filed for record in 1887. In that same year, Brown was voted as one of Wylie’s first Aldermen. He also ran a mercantile store that served the gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe railroad and area farmers. In 1903 the Thomas and Mattie Brown Cottage, also known as the little white house, was moved from its original location on Ballard Avenue to its present location on the northeast corner of West Jefferson and North Jackson Avenue. This was in preparation for building the Browns a larger family home, called the Thomas and Mattie Brown House (designated a recorded Texas historic landmark in 1992). The Browns lived in the little white house for 16 years and then moved to the newer family home upon its completion in 1905. The cottage remained in the family until the Browns’ deaths, passing to their daughter Tennie L. Creel in 1926. When the Creels passed away in 1945, the estate was settled and Paul Pearson took ownership. He owned the cottage for a total of 49 years. Brown Cottage’s architecture is Folk Victorian with Carpenter Gothic detailing. Some of the features include cypress siding, a bay window, cross gabled roof, and an asymmetrical floor plan. Brown Cottage is one of the most prominent original residences still intact from when the town of Wylie was established in 1886. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK – 2017