Ovilla

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Ovilla. Ellis County.

One of the oldest communities in the whole county, and it started the way a lot of Texas stories start: with people who needed walls between themselves and whatever was out there in the dark. Eighteen forty-four, settlers threw up a fortified settlement on upper Red Oak Creek. Not a town yet.

A stronghold. A place to hold the line. That's your beginning.

Three years later, in 1847, the Shiloh Cumberland Presbyterian Church was founded; because once you've decided you're stayin', you build something for the soul. And then in 1849, the first schoolhouse went up. Fortification, then faith, then learning.

That's a community takin' shape right before your eyes. By the turn of the century, Ovilla had filled itself out real nicely: a post office, banks, several stores, a cotton gin. It was a genuine marketing center for the farmers working the land all around it.

Now here's where the story gets that particular Texas flavor of hard luck mixed with stubbornness. The railroads came through Ellis County; and kept right on goin'. The major highways came through; and did the same thing.

Bypassed. Just like that, the thing that could've made Ovilla boom instead made it quiet. And then, as if the town needed any more convincing that the universe had its eye on it, fires tore through in 1918 and again in 1926.

Destructive fires, the marker says, and you get the sense that word is doin' a lot of heavy liftin'. Two fires, eight years apart. Some places don't survive one.

Ovilla is still here. Proximity to urban areas, the record tells us, has stimulated new growth in recent years. No railroad.

No major highway. Two fires. One fortified creek settlement from 1844.

Still growin'. That, right there, is Ovilla.

What the marker says

One of the oldest communities in Ellis County, Ovilla began as a fortified settlement built in 1844 on upper Red Oak Creek. Shiloh Cumberland Presbyterian Church was founded in 1847 and the town's first schoolhouse was erected in 1849. By the turn of the century, Ovilla had a post office, banks, several stores, and a cotton gin. A marketing center for area farmers, Ovilla was bypassed by railroads and major highways. The town suffered destructive fires in 1918 and in 1926. Proximity to urban areas has stimulated new growth in recent years.