Ennis architect Hix McCanless (1868–1938) designed many of the city’s most notable commercial, institutional, and residential buildings. Born in Tennessee and educated at Texas A&M, he practiced as an architect, surveyor, and the town’s city engineer. He designed this two-story red brick building on a prominent street corner for cotton gin owner A. H. Rowe. The Woodmen of the World met on the second floor, and commercial uses were on the first floor. Paneled brick pilasters rise through the corbeled parapet to create a somewhat idiosyncratic roof profile, and a modest corner turret capped by an octagonal pointed roof completes the building. McCanless’s pilasters on the Rowe Building were perhaps influenced by similar brick pilasters on the former Ennis National Bank Building (1883) nearby at 110 W. Ennis, which has a more substantial corner tower, but which appears to rest precariously upon cast-iron columns.
Another McCanless-designed building (1910; 215 N. Dallas Street) is an imposing, two-story tawny brick structure built as a lodge for the Knights of Pythias, with retail space on the ground floor. The classically detailed facade has two central Ionic columns, and lateral rusticated brick piers with Ionic capitals define the tall second-floor lodge. The design reflects McCanless’s talent for working in various styles.