The Mulkey-Loggins House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it straight along to you. Now, some stories take generations to come full circle, and this one right here in Ellis County is about as tidy a loop as you're going to find on a Texas road trip. It starts in 1854, when a pioneer by the name of Philip A.

Mulkey settled a tract of land out here. Philip wouldn't live to see what grew from it; he passed in 1862. But the land had a long memory, and so did his bloodline.

For nearly two decades, things out here were quiet enough. Then 1871 rolls around, and the Houston and Texas Central Railroad comes pushing through, and just like that, Ennis is founded. That's how fast a railroad can conjure a town out of open country.

Philip's son James (born in 1859) grew up to be a prosperous cattleman. He had an eye for the future, too. When Ennis became the railroad's divisional headquarters in 1891, James Mulkey saw opportunity in that shift, and he developed a neighborhood called the Highland addition, right here where we're standing, as part of that growing city.

Now, into that Highland addition stepped a man named Dr. James C. Loggins: mayor, city alderman, a man of some standing in Ennis.

In 1898, Dr. Loggins erected this Victorian residence. Born in 1845, gone by 1921, he left behind a house that knew how to hold its ground.

And here's where the circle closes, and it closes slow and satisfying. In 1944, a man named Keith Mulkey purchased this house, along with his wife Tina Beth Wheeler. Keith Mulkey was the grandson of James Mulkey.

The grandson of the cattleman who developed this very neighborhood came back and bought the house that somebody else had built on it. Philip Mulkey settled this land in 1854. Ninety years later, his great-grandson's son came home to it.

The railroad built the town, a cattleman built the neighborhood, a doctor built the house, and the Mulkeys just waited until it was ready for them.

What the marker says

This property was part of a tract settled in 1854 by pioneer Philip A. Mulkey (d. 1862). Ennis was founded in 1871, when the Houston & Texas Central Railroad reached this point. Mulkey's son James (1859-1903), a prosperous cattleman, included this site in the Highland addition, a neighborhood that he developed after Ennis became the railroad's divisional headquarters in 1891. Dr. James C. Loggins (1845-1921), mayor and city alderman, erected this Victorian residence in 1898. It was purchased in 1944 by Keith Mulkey, James Mulkey's grandson, and his wife Tina Beth (Wheeler). (1978)