In 1871, the Houston and Texas Central Railroad (H&TC) purchased 647 acres of land in Ellis County at a price of $5.00 per acre, establishing the line's northern terminus. The namesake of the town was Cornelius Ennis an early official of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. The railroad was the key to the development of Ennis as an agricultural, commercial, and later, an industrial center. In 1920, a total of 152,601 bales of cotton were ginned in Ellis County the most in any county in America. By 1930, Ennis was known as the place "Where Railroads and Cotton Fields Meet."

For over 125 years, Ennis has successfully repositioned its strategic business focus from railroad, to agriculture, to modern industry. Ennis continues to embrace the rapidly changing business environment and enthusiastically looks forward to a very dynamic future. In a continuing effort to maintain this long term success, our schoolchildren enjoy the advanced technology available in our state-of-the-art multi-media Learning Center at the 40,000 volume Ennis Public Library.