This stunning colonial revival home at 4322 Rawlins was built in 1923. The first residents were the Smith family who were the owners of The Smith Ice Cream Company. of Dallas. Charles Winston Smith and his wife Jinnie May and their three children, C. Russell Jr., J. Louis, and Helen lived in the house until 1949.
Charles and his father started making ice cream in Dallas in 1898 at a factory building on Harwood St. when he was 22. His father was James Hickman Smith who came to Dallas from Tennessee in 1854 when he was three. Texas had been admitted to the Union in 1845 and Dallas had yet to be incorporated as a city. They settled on 256 acres in the Cochran Chapel area of what was then called Letot, Texas before it was incorporated into the Ciry of Dallas. This area came to be the Bachman Lake area of Dallas. The family members were farmers and cabinet makers. James married Amanda Bachman whose family owned the property were Bachman Lake is now and whose father the lake is named, just south of the Smith farm. James was able to build a colonial type house for the young couple in 1875 by selling cotton by the oxcart load in Jefferson, Texas 170 miles east of Dallas and returning with lumber. He ultimately had enough lumber for the house.
James was still a farmer when his son convinced him to open the ice cream factory at 324 Harwood St. near Pacific Ave in downtown. Smith Ice Cream was sold wholesale and retail all over North Texas. James retired as president of Smith Ice Cream in 1921, leaving his son Charles to run the company. In the 1920’s Charles moved his family to the newly built house in Perry Heights and there they raised two sons and daughter. Charles sold off much of the original family farm except for a Crown Hill Mausoleum that still stands today and where his family are buried.
Charles was one of the organizers of Dallas Rotary Club in the Oriental Hotel in 1911, a member of the board of Oak Lawn Methodist church, a mason, a Shriner, and also the director of the International Ice Cream Manufacturers Association. Charles taught his business to his sons, who later ran the business after his death in 1947. C. Russell Smith, his eldest son was president until 1961, when C. Russell’s son then assumed the business. Smith Ice Cream was finally sold in 1966 and the company closed. The ice cream company lasted 68 years.
Jinnie May, Charles Sr’s wife, sold the house in 1949, two years after her husband died. She lived until 1960 at 89 years of age leaving three grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren.
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