G. H. Cunningham Farmstead, 230 feet southeast of intersection of Curry and Vincent Roads, Waxahachie, Ellis County, TX

Significance: The farmstead includes a grouping of buildings on a 106-acre tract of land in the J.J. Mallard Survey. The complex is associated with George H. Cunningham (1825-1915) who owned vast amounts of land in Ellis and nearby counties during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Like so many pioneers who settled in western Ellis County prior to and immediately after the Civil War, Cunningham originally hailed from Tennessee. He came to Ellis County in 1849 and worked as a land surveyor. He purchased this 106-acre parcel in 1855 from James Jefferson Mallard and established this farm on a prominent and highly visible location that overlooked the surrounding countryside. The one-story frame house nearest to Curry Road reportedly is his original residence. Although he farmed the land with hired help, Cunningham appeared to be more interested in land acquisition and at one time owned more than 3,000 acres in Ellis County. Local informants report that he later built a large house on another tract of land near the J.M. Dunaway House and leased his old homestead to tenant farmers. After Cunningham's death in 1915, a guardian for the estate of B.C. Cunningham (presumed to be Brazillin C., the youngest son of George H. and Tennessee Sims), oversaw the property, but in 1933 Leta Mae Cunningham assumed control. She later married G. Howell Hight, and they continued to lease the property to tenant farmers. After the decline of the local cotton market in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the farmers on this an other farms began to harvest a greater variety of crops as well as raise cattle. The property's significance stems from its associations with one of the most extensive landowners in Ellis County during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and from the age of one of the houses, which is among the oldest extant buildings in the region. Furthermore, the property also reflects the evolution of a mid-nineteenth century family-run farm into an early twentieth century tenant farm.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N1849
Survey number: HABS TX-3378
Building/structure dates: ca. 1856 Initial Construction