One of the most important historic properties in Dallas is about to hit the market. This is the kind of opportunity that makes my heart skip a beat because I can clearly see what the F.A. Brown Farmstead could become if it lands in the right hands.
Built around 1880, it is the oldest unaltered farmhouse on its original site in Dallas. It received a Texas state historical marker in 1986 and was landmarked by the City of Dallas in 1987.
According to the Library of Congress files, the F.A. Brown Farmhouse was part of the Peters Colony headright granted to Calvin G. Cole in 1854 to encourage settlement of the area. Cole sold the property to William H. and Ellen Price Stewart, who built the home for $2,000. They were actually the eighth owners of the land, but the first to build on it.
In 1885, Francis Asbury Brown purchased the home and 200 acres of farmland. The home stayed in the family for over a century. Over the years, parcels were sold off, leaving the remaining F.A. Brown Farmstead at half an acre. Brown’s son, Ernest, married Nancy Annette Cochran (the Cochran family contributed to the construction of Cochran Methodist Chapel) in 1894. The Ernest Browns moved in after his stepmother’s death with their seven children and operated a dairy farm for years.
When Ernest died in 1943, his daughter and son-in-law, Anna and William Baker, moved in and preserved the home. Anna left the property in trust to her husband, with the understanding that the Historic Preservation League would take ownership when he died. It passed to the Historic Preservation League, the precursor to Preservation Dallas, in 1985…