Ellis County Texas map
32.35° N · 96.80° W · County seat: Waxahachie · 952 sq mi · Central Time
Ellis County is the southern doorstep of the Metroplex, split down the middle by two interstates that leave Dallas together and never come back: I-35E runs southwest through Waxahachie, I-45 runs southeast through Ennis. Between them stands one of the most photographed county courthouses in Texas.
Waxahachie sits on I-35E near the center. Midlothian is northwest, Ennis east on I-45, and the Dallas County line runs across the top.
Where Ellis County is
The county was created in 1849 out of Navarro County and organized the following year. It carries the name of Richard Ellis, who presided over the 1836 convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos that produced the Texas Declaration of Independence.
Seven counties touch it: Dallas on the north, Kaufman on the northeast, Henderson on the east, Navarro on the south, Hill on the southwest, Johnson on the west and a short stretch of Tarrant on the northwest. Downtown Dallas is about 30 miles north of the county's center, and Arlington is roughly 32 miles northwest — close enough that Red Oak, Ovilla, Glenn Heights and Midlothian function as Dallas suburbs while the southern half of the county is still cotton and grain land on the Blackland Prairie.
Cities and towns
| Place | Type | 2020 population |
|---|---|---|
| Waxahachie | City · county seat | 41,127 |
| Midlothian | City | 35,134 |
| Ennis | City | 20,126 |
| Red Oak | City | 14,225 |
| Glenn Heights (part) | City | 4,603 |
| Ovilla (part) | City | 3,994 |
| Ferris (part) | City | 2,791 |
| Palmer | Town | 2,399 |
| Italy | Town | 1,946 |
| Oak Leaf | City | 1,551 |
| Maypearl | City | 916 |
| Garrett | Town | 841 |
| Pecan Hill | City | 729 |
| Milford | Town | 721 |
Bardwell and Alma are also incorporated. Glenn Heights, Ovilla and Ferris straddle the Dallas County line, so the figures above count only the Ellis County share.
Roads
- I-35E – enters from Dallas at Red Oak and runs southwest past Waxahachie and Italy toward Hillsboro, where it rejoins I-35W.
- I-45 – the eastern of the two interstates, from Ferris and Palmer through Ennis toward Corsicana and Houston.
- US-287 – the diagonal from Waxahachie northwest through Midlothian to Fort Worth.
- US-67 – overlaps I-35E north of Waxahachie, then splits west through Midlothian and Cleburne.
- US-77 – the old road beside I-35E, through Waxahachie and Italy.
- SH-34 – northeast from Waxahachie through Ennis toward Kaufman and Greenville.
- SH-342 and Spur 437 – the Waxahachie–Red Oak–Lancaster local route and the connector into town.
- SH-360 – the Arlington tollway, which ends at US-287 in the county's northwest corner.
The Waxahachie courthouse
The Ellis County Courthouse was finished in 1897 in red sandstone and pink granite to a design by J. Riely Gordon, the architect responsible for a string of Texas courthouses in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. It has a nine-story clock tower, deep arched entries on each face and carved stone faces set into the column capitals around the porches — the carvings that generate the local legend about a stonemason and a Waxahachie boarding-house daughter. The building still houses county offices and anchors a square of Victorian storefronts, which is why Waxahachie has stood in for small-town America in a long list of films.
Bluebonnets, cement and a buried collider
Ennis is designated the state's official bluebonnet city and maps a set of driving trails through the countryside east and north of town each April, timed to the peak bloom. The town's Czech settlers also left the National Polka Festival, held there every spring.
Midlothian, on the chalk and limestone of the Austin Chalk outcrop, is the industrial end of the county: cement plants and a steel mill sit along US-67 and US-287, and the quarries that feed them are visible from the highway. South of Waxahachie, Lake Waxahachie was formed in 1956 by damming Waxahachie Creek; it covers about 650 acres and reaches roughly 50 feet deep.
Underneath the fields southwest of Waxahachie runs the unfinished tunnel of the Superconducting Super Collider, a particle accelerator ring begun in the late 1980s and cancelled by Congress in 1993 with about 14 miles of tunnel bored. The surface buildings were sold off; the ring is still down there.