(Information taken from Wikipedia)
Waxahachie was founded in August 1850 as the seat of the newly established Ellis County on a donated tract of land given by early settler Emory W. Rogers, a native of Lawrence County, Alabama, who migrated to Texas in 1839. It was incorporated on April 28, 1871, and in 1875 the state legislature granted investors the right to operate a rail line from Waxahachie Tap Railroad to Garrett, Texas, which greatly increased the population of Waxahachie.
From 1902 to 1942, Waxahachie was the 2nd home of Trinity University, which was a Presbyterian-affiliated institution founded in 1869. Then-Trinity’s main administration and classroom building is today the Farmer Administration Building of Southwestern Assemblies of God University. Trinity’s present-day location is San Antonio.
Waxahachie was the home of Constance Maddox Haynes (1928-2015), Louanne Borden‘s maternal grandmother, and the only member of her extended family to which she had a special closeness. Louanne’s release from prison coincided with Constance Haynes’s funeral in Waxahachie.
In the mid-1980s Waxahachie became popular with the movie industry.
The majority of Tender Mercies, a 1983 film about a country western singer, was filmed in Waxahachie. The 1984 film Places in the Heart starring Sally Field was also filmed in Waxahachie. The 1985 film The Trip to Bountiful starring Geraldine Page was also filmed in Waxahachie.
Highway 80 Stories 