Milford is an incorporated rural community in the southwestern corner of Ellis County, in North Central Texas. It sits along U.S. Highway 77, adjacent to the Interstate 35E corridor, roughly twenty miles south of Waxahachie and about midway between Dallas–Fort Worth and Waco. With a population of about 720, Milford is one of the smaller municipalities in the county, but it retains an independent identity built around its school and its farming heritage. The community's name combines "mill" and "ford," a reference to the mill that once stood at a nearby stream crossing. Milford grew as an agricultural and shipping community in the late 1800s and early 1900s, serving the surrounding cotton and grain farms, and for generations it has remained a compact, largely residential town. The town's population has ebbed and flowed with the fortunes of rural Texas, reaching a low point in the late 1960s before stabilizing as a small bedroom community within reach of the metroplex. Today Milford's economy and daily life are modest in scale. The school district is the community's anchor, and many residents commute to jobs in Waxahachie, Hillsboro, or points along the I-35 corridor, while others work in agriculture and local trades. The town offers a quiet, unhurried pace with a short main-street corridor and surrounding rural acreage. Hillsboro lies a short distance to the south along I-35, and Waxahachie, the Ellis County seat, provides county services, shopping, and its historic courthouse square to the north. For homebuyers, Milford offers small-town living with relatively quick freeway access to the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, a one-campus school where students attend from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade, and a low-density housing stock. It suits families and individuals who want a rural North Texas setting and the community closeness of a small school without being far removed from larger cities and their amenities.