Ted Talley
The iconic 1897 Romanesque Revival Ellis County courthouse in Waxahachie—which has drawn many a film as an endearing backdrop.
Located on Interstate 35 south of Dallas, Waxahachie is in an area I’d call “North Texas Nondescript”. To the east, the service road is dotted with chain motels, a hospital, and industrial parks. To the west, it’s all open ranchland.
But if you respond to a billboard invitation to pull off into the small city, you’ll discover why it goes by three names: the Crape Myrtle Capital of Texas, the Gingerbread City, and, finally, the Best Little Hollywood in Texas. Thanks especially to the striking Ellis County Courthouse and its suitability as an iconic backdrop, Waxahachie has been the shooting location for almost ninety movies and television shows.
Completed in 1897 in Romanesque Revival style, the courthouse’s architectural features include turrets, curved window glass and a still-working clock tower.
But if you respond to a billboard invitation to pull off into the small city, you’ll discover why it goes by three names: the Crape Myrtle Capital of Texas, the Gingerbread City, and, finally, the Best Little Hollywood in Texas.
Immediately across from the courthouse is the Ellis County Museum which displays the interesting, yet expected, artifacts of a Texas town rooted in 19th century history and agriculture. But modern times are noted in, if nothing else, the Waxahachie Movie Shoot T-shirt you can purchase. It is screened with as many titles as possible of films made here and nearby.
Time things right and you might just witness the action yourself, as I did on a visit last May when I stumbled upon the filming of Taylor Sheridan's new series Lawmen: Bass Reeves—set to premiere on Paramount+ November 5. The Ellis County Courthouse square was a beehive of activity surrounded by film production crews, cables, equipment cases, and prop trucks being stuffed with furniture removed from the building. Bass Reeves, the inspiration for The Lone Ranger, was the first black U.S. Marshall. Stars are David Oyelowo as the title character and Dennis Quaid.
Places in the Heart is a wonderful movie, but my trip to Waxahachie was really a search for the small-town church that opens and closes the film as two old hymns are sung, standards from my youth attending Baptist churches in St. Tammany Parish, where my mother was the organist.
The reason I first visited Waxahachie on my way home from Waco some years ago was not for the scores of movies but for just one: Places in the Heart, written and directed by Waxahachie native Robert Benton and starring Sally Field. Benton won the 1985 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay while Field took home her second for Best Actress, prompting her famous "You like me, right now, you like me!" acceptance speech. (Other high-profile stars have won Academy Awards tied to Waxahachie. Actor Robert Duvall and screenwriter Horton Foote won statues in 1983 for Tender Mercies, and in 1985 Foote was nominated for Best Screenplay and Geraldine Page took the Best Actress award in A Trip to Bountiful.)
Places in the Heart is a wonderful movie, but my trip to Waxahachie was really a search for the small-town church that opens and closes the film as two old hymns are sung, standards from my youth attending Baptist churches in St. Tammany Parish, where my mother was the organist. “Blessed Assurance” sets the mood in the opening credits with establishing shots of the county courthouse towering in the distance. "In the Garden" closes the narrative with the passing of the communion tray, tiny cups filled with grape juice in Southern Protestant style. The tinny piano music swells into a cathedral pipe organ as the tray reaches two dead characters—the sheriff and the teenager who killed him—taking their cups among the living in a poignant metaphor of the “communion of saints”.
I drove all over Waxahachie’s old neighborhoods in search of that church. Ready to give up, I visited the Ellis County Museum, where I learned the church was some distance west of town, in the rural community known as Bethel.
Within the hour, I found myself pulling up to a familiar scene—the church in reality appearing much as it had on the silver screen. Bethel Community Church dates to 1853, when a Methodist congregation met under a brush arbor a few miles to the southwest of the current sanctuary built in 1924. In the film, a former covered cattle pen across the road depicted a church fellowship pavilion.
If You Go:
Beyond stopping here solely for the nearness to celebrity, there’s much to enjoy in Waxahachie as a destination on its own.
Where to Stay
Built in 1900 and opened as an inn in 1993, the Chaska House and Cottages takes a “novel” approach. Rooms are author-themed with names Clemens-Twain, Margaret Mitchell, and Scott Fitzgerald. The cottages are decorated in a style lifted from Ernest Hemingway’s Key West home. The main house’s backdoor stoop is seen in the opening sequence of Places in the Heart as Danny Glover’s character says grace over a handout meal from a kindly woman. Companies like Seagram’s liquor and Calvin Klein, as well as several television shows, have chosen the site for a shooting location. Though listed as a bed and breakfast, the property no longer serves meals, however the cottages have kitchens.
Built in 1915, The English Merchant’s Inn is the former home of English cotton merchant James Wright Harrison in an era when Waxahachie and Central Texas were renowned around the world for cotton production. You’ll find the interior spaces finely decorated; the host and owner Mary Baskin is a world traveler and designer who has worked for Traditional Home, Country Home, and Better Homes and Gardens magazines.
Where to Eat
The fourth of Al Mack’s properties, (two in Dallas and the original Beer Bucket in Playa del Carmen Mexico) Big Al’s Down the Hatch is directly on the Waxahachie square, with food beyond the typical sports bar, including an extensive appetizer list, plus burgers and plate lunches. Saturday and Sunday brunch features a Bloody Mary and mimosa bar, shrimp and grits, breakfast quesadillas, and omelets. Evening entertainment might be anything from live bands to karaoke, or stand-up comedy.
Next door to the Ellis County Museum, Meat Church BBQ Supply is the headquarters for a company that supplies seasoning products to retailers across the country. Buy direct here: rubs, sauces, t-shirt souvenirs, plus barbecue tips and recipes.
Plan your trip to Waxahachie at waxahachiecvb.com.
