The 1889 Brown Cottage, one of the oldest homes in Wylie, was the first Wylie home of businessman William Thomas Brown and Martha (Maggie) J. (Housewright) Brown, who moved there shortly after the town’s establishment in 1886 to help build the community. Brown was one of Wylie’s first developers, filing the Brown & Burns addition subdivision in 1887, and that same year he was elected one of the town’s first aldermen while also operating a mercantile store that served the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe railroad and area farmers. In 1903, the Thomas and Mattie Brown Cottage, also known as the Little White House, was moved from its original location on Ballard Avenue to the northeast corner of West Jefferson and North Jackson Avenue to make way for the Browns’ larger family home, the Thomas and Mattie Brown House. The Browns lived in the Little White House for 16 years before moving into the newer home upon its completion in 1905, and the cottage remained in the family until their deaths, passing to their daughter Tennie L. Creel in 1926. After the Creels died in 1945, the estate was settled and Paul Pearson acquired the cottage, owning it for 49 years. Built in the Folk Victorian style with Carpenter Gothic detailing, the cottage features cypress siding, a bay window, a cross gabled roof, and an asymmetrical floor plan, and it remains one of the most prominent original residences still intact from Wylie’s founding era.