Pioneers of Ellis County
Peter Stout
Grove Creek Mill Owned by Stout,
Served Many People
Abstracted from article by John B. Herring, Ennis Daily News July 14, 1938
Contributed by Jean Caddel
Because there were only a few small settlements prior to 1850 in what
is now Ellis County, there were few commercial industries during that time
period. The first settlers came to establish farm homesteads. Necessities
of life not raised on the farm were hauled in by ox-carts from points
twenty-five, fifty or even a hundred miles away. Much such merchandise was
shipped from New Orleans to Galveston and Houston, and brought up the Trinity
River by steamer, and the rest of the way in ox-carts. The railroads
were to come many years later.
According to The History of Ellis County Texas, ( Lewis
Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892), the first commercial industry in
present Ellis County, was Peter Stout's mill, built on Grove Creek
in 1846. It was located a short distance from about where the H. & T.
C. Railroad crosses the Creek and was patronized for twenty miles around.
[Note: We do not know the exact location Section 5 of the old map
on this website shows the location of the mill as being just below the Dallas
County line and north, northeast of Red Oak. However the creek known as Grove
Creek at the turn of the century, was much further south - between
Red Oak and Waxahachie The reference cited above states that General
Tarrant was an early Ellis County settler and built a mill on a tributary
of the Trinity River just below Forreston. He arrived about 1844, but
no date is given regarding the mill.
If anyone has more information on the locations of these two mills please
share it.]
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