Alma, TX

Alma is an Ellis County town six miles southeast of Ennis along Interstate 45. The 2020 census counted 373 residents. The settlement began in the 1840s, then took a sharper shape in 1871 when the Houston and Texas Central Railroad came through. C. C. Hemming gave land for the right-of-way, and the town was named for his daughter. For decades Alma was the center of a farming community, with homes, businesses, churches, and civic groups gathered around the rail line.

The highway changed the town's scale without erasing its older layers. I-45 now cuts through the middle of Alma, making the community easy to pass and easy to overlook. The old Willow Pond area was once a stagecoach stop between Waxahachie and Marshall, and the town had a school, church, post office, bank, and several businesses in its more active years. Today the city keeps a community center, event calendar, worship listings, and local news close at hand. Alma feels like a railroad town that became a highway town but never stopped carrying its own small-town history.