Waxahachie

Town and administrative headquarters of Ellis County, northeast Texas; population (1990) 18,200. It is located 42 km/26 mi south of Dallas. Founded in the 1840s, it has been a cattle, cotton, and grain centre in the Blacklands, and has poultry, pecan, and honey processors. The city's manufactures include boats, fibreglass, refrigerators, and oilfield equipment. It is home to Southwestern Bible Institute (1927) is here, and the site of an annual rodeo and livestock show.

Waxahachie is an important moviemaking centre; parts of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), among several other feature films, were shot here. The Superconducting Supercollider, an underground atomic particle accelerator being built in a ring around Waxahachie, was to have a 87 km/54 mi-long, roughly circular main tunnel. Federal funding cuts brought an apparent end to the project in 1993.