COLLINWOOD: Address to the Plano City Council, May 11,

2015
M.D. Wells
Thank you, Council members, for the opportunity to talk to you tonight. My
name is Marianne Wells and I am a member of one of Planos LEGACY
FAMILIES. My mother, like most of you or your parents, came here from
someplace else. She saw a way of life which would be gone within a few
decades, and started documenting it so that future generations would know
about the lives of Planos early settlers. Her research led to what became
PLANO, TEXAS: THE EARLY YEARS and a collection of historic photographs
which are available on plano.gov. Mother was joined by Shirley Schell, who
was also from someplace else, and Maribel Davis who was the architect of
the library system we have today. The Plano City Council applauded their
efforts, and the book became a valuable reference for the Heritage
Department.
Then Plano went through a period of explosive growth. Nearly everyone was
from someplace else. Land was sold; houses were bulldozed; and much of
the life of the earliest settlers was forgotten. Plano built an award-winning
system of parks and trails and with great vision continues to add to it today.
Three years ago the Parks Department was confronted with a GOLDEN
opportunity: to design a park around a 150 year-old-house sitting on more
than 100 acres of its original land grant. Needless to say, any house in Texas
that is 150-years-old is historically significant. Park planners drew up a
beautiful plan, and it was dropped. Another plan was drawn up putting a
park pavilion on the site of the historic house. Ironically, Preservation Texas
has just added all historic structures in municipally-owned parks in the state
to its endangered list.
The RFP process inhibited communication so we never got to tell you or staff
about the history of the house and its homestead or to work with the Parks
Department to come up with a plan to keep it on its historic site and make it
a treasured asset for Plano, the state, and the nation. I want to tell you just
a little of why it is such a significant part of our heritage and about the early
settlers on two creeks which would one day become Plano and the pioneer
women who kept journals for 80 years.
We know where these families crossed the Red River into Texas. From public
records, letters, and those journals we found out that the Collinwood house
and the land it stands on intersected the lives of nearly half the families
chronicled in EARLY YEARS. A generation ago before the explosive growth in
Plano everyone knew about the journal of one of those women who lived on
Spring Creek: Lizzie Carpenter. [Plano Star Courier, August 12, 1973, section
III, p. 8]. Two miles away on White Rock Creek near Collinwood Lizzies sister

wrote about how she could stand on her front porch and see the dust from
the cattle drives on the Shawnee Trail. At that part of the trail it ran parallel
to what is now the Dallas North Tollway near where new corporate pioneers
like Toyota are locating on Legacy Drive. My mother did the research for the
historical marker for the Shawnee Trail and joining her at the dedication in
1980 were trail drivers on a commemorative wagon train on their way to the
State Fair of Texas. [Plano Daily Star-Courier, October 3, 1980, p. 1]
There are all kinds of stories about Plano and the Shawnee Trail. Two of
Lizzie Carpenters boy joined the trail drives and became PLANO cowboys
making several trips when they were teenagers. One night they looked up
and on the crest of the hill and saw Comanches. Somehow they escaped
with their lives. That was the last time they joined the trail drives, and their
father got out of the cattle business and became a farmer.
The grandson of the caretakers during the 1950s contacted us and told us
about the summers he spent on the property and the stories handed down
from owner to owner about raids by Native Americans and the tunnel which
the early settlers used to escape. There was also supposed to be a place
where earlier little boys had found arrowheads. Were they the remnants of a
skirmish or an even an earlier Native American camp site? We wont know
until we do the research.
This is not a story of the myth of the West. This is the story of TEXAS and its
beginnings. The Collinwood house and the land around it is the last
remaining site of earliest Anglo settlement in Plano before there was a Plano.
We look across the land from the house onto the Blackland prairie where the
big four prairie grasses miraculously still grow.
To those who look at the house today without the guidance of a trained
preservation architect you may not see the signs of the significance and age
of its construction. The limestone boulder under the house supporting its
foundation probably came from the creek on the east side. The foundation
beam was hand-hewn and most likely came from the trees along the creek.
The wood for framing the house hidden under the shingles was cypress and
would have come by wagon from Jefferson, Texas, near the closest stand of
cypress trees at Caddo Lake and hauled by teamsters who drove teams of
oxen back and forth to the nearest market. James A. Bell whose name is
carved in the limestone block above the fireplace was a teamster whose
brother-in-law lived on Spring Creek. That limestone block was discovered by
the owner in the 1960s under the house and was most likely an original
cornerstone. Moving the house will not only destroy its historical significance
on its original site, it will also endanger what makes it so significant
architecturally.

History is a core community value. Because of that we have been able to

raise a lot of money privately in just a few weeks---over $500,000. Some of
that was from a man who does not even live in the state. He just wants to
be a part of saving Texas history. Foundations which support Texas history
and historic preservation are interested in giving us funds, but that takes
time. We need that time.
YOU are the guardians of Planos assets, tangible and intangible, and now of
TEXAS history. We have just found buried treasure in our backyard. It will
take a while to do the research required by state law and for the Corps of
Engineers to document what they find along the creek before a new pond is
constructed. We encourage you as the LEADERS of a City of Excellence to go
beyond the minimum legal requirements and allow an extensive research
project so that we can document for future generations what time has left
behind.
We are asking you to be heroes. Slow down this runaway train. We keep
hearing reasons why any plan we put together wont be acceptable. We can
do a LOW-USE PLAN with occasional tours and gallery space; or we can do a
MEDIUM-USE PLAN with educational programs, but we and staff need
direction from YOU.
The Texas Historical Commission has asked the City of Plano for a partnership
which will foster effective historic preservation and encourages us to
preserve the irreplaceable heritage of Plano and our great state. You have
the opportunity to thrust Plano to the PINNICLE of the preservation world.
This opportunity will not come again. This is not a business decision
although we will find a way to do it in a business-like fashion. This is a
decision about culture, about reclaiming the SOUL of a community that has
forgotten its earliest history during a period of explosive growth.
People are moving here from California and New York and from around the
world. In a time when our country is increasingly polarized we need symbols
to draw us together and give us a collective identity. To have such a
powerful symbol near the Legacy Corridor will be a source of pride to new
residents and corporations who find themselves so near the spirit of Old
Texas.
This is good for Plano and good for Texas. But it is abundantly clear that we
cannot come up with a plan in isolation. We need to work in partnership
with your staff. I urge you to be heroes and to vote with wisdom to help us
find a way to save and preserve irreplaceable Texas history. By the way, we
have just received a letter from Preservation Dallas urging you to do just
that.