Jefferson, TX

Rescuing Jefferson, Texas

A stroll down the streets of Jefferson, Texas, is a trip through Texas history—from the river that made the town a crucial Confederate port to tycoon Jay Gould’s private railroad car.

Jefferson (pop. 2,335), once the state’s only inland river port and the second largest port city in Texas, shipped beef and other supplies to New Orleans for the Confederate war effort, since there were no railroads to haul supplies east. The town thrived, swelling to 30,000, as Southerners seeking to escape the ruin of the Civil War migrated West.

But the traffic on the Big Cypress Bayou—the river is called a bayou in the Louisiana tradition—ended in 1873, when the U.S. Corps of Engineers removed a log-jam in the Red River above Shreveport, La., that had kept Big Cypress water levels high enough to allow boats to travel the bayou to Caddo Lake, eventually entering the Red River south of the logjam.

“The water dropped almost overnight, and that nearly put an end to Jefferson,” says Karl Frederickson, manager of Jefferson’s historic Excelsior House hotel. “The jobs went away, and so did most of the people. Jefferson slept right through the Industrial Revolution and didn’t find its new economy until the 1960s when a group of garden club ladies decided to bring Jefferson back to life.”

The Jessie Allen Wise Garden Club in 1961 borrowed money to buy and restore the Excelsior, the cornerstone of the town’s charm, says Sharon Stewart, current president of the club.

“They were determined to stall the decline of Jefferson, and they felt that the Excelsior, with its beautiful French chandeliers, Oriental rugs and antiques, would be the logical place to start,” Stewart says.

The second-oldest hotel in continuous operation in Texas, the Excelsior was built in the 1850s by riverboat captain William Perry. Well-known guests have included Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes.

The town that once thrived because of steamboats, cotton, iron ore, and lumber now markets its history—luring tourists to more than 60 bed and breakfasts where they can enjoy the town’s serenity while visiting hundreds of historic sites, including 16 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Texas History Museum, a treasury of maps and books about Texas and Texans, offers a unique insight into the evolution of Texas from Republic to state. “We have one of the largest collections of Texas currency in the U.S.,’’ says Rosanne Bumgarner, librarian. The museum has first editions of several books by Davy Crockett, including An Account of Colonel Crockett’s Tour to the North and Down East, the last book he published before dying at the Alamo.

Antebellum mansions that give the town an Old South flavor include the 1850 Freeman Plantation. Scarlett O’Hardy’s Gone with the Wind museum, owned by Randy and Bobbie Hardy, features one of the largest private collections of memorabilia from Margaret Mitchell’s epic story of the Old South. The collection includes 75 foreign editions of the book, movie posters, and costume reproductions.

Gould’s private railroad car “The Atalanta” is across the street from the Excelsior. A quaint steam locomotive pulls cars past the river and historic sites.

Jefferson was home to the state’s first artificial light street lamp and ice-making machine, though both are gone now. The first bed and breakfast in Texas, Pride House, is a beautiful Victorian mansion owned by descendents of steamboat pioneers.

The garden club ladies are still promoting the town and looking for more historic sites, Stewart says.

“This is an incredibly dynamic small town, with most of its citizens, not just the garden club, putting a lot of time and effort into promoting and preserving the town’s heritage.’’

Steve Walker is a freelance writer in Dallas.

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