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East
Texas is filled with towns bearing odd names, ranging from Dimple
and Cuthand in Red River County to Pluck and Soda in Polk County--and
with places like Yallo Busha and Slocum
thrown in for good measure.
Just how these and other strangely-named communities got their names
is a whole slice of East
Texas history.
For
example, take Redwater, located twelve miles southwest of Texarkana
in southeastern Bowie County.
By itself, Redwater isn’t a terribly unusual name, but the
story behind the name is a heck of a tale, especially when you throw
in an agnostic, a colorful British-born postmaster, and the first
set of female quadruplets born in the U.S.
In the mid-1870s, a small town grew up around a sawmill operated
by two men named Daniels and Spence. who decided to name the community
for agnostic Robert Ingersoll and established a post office in his
honor in 1881.
But in 1886, the town started talking about founding a church and
called in Rev. R.D. Fuller, pastor of Texarkana’s
First Methodist Church, for help.
A Methodist church was organized and a few years later, the town
held a revival with a hundred conversions.
With a church and an expanded religious faith, townspeople decided
they didn’t want to live in a town named for a man who didn’t believe
in God.
So they trashed
Ingersoll, and adopted the name “Redwater” because the water in
nearly all of the springs and shallow wells around the community
had a reddish color.
They also mounted
a campaign against liquor, closed down the town’s saloons and forced
their owners to leave the community. That was in 1899 and since
then, whiskey has not been sold in Redwater.
Then came E.T. Page, a British-born businessman who liked East
Texas so well that he was often called “East Texas Page.” He
soon became a tutor for children in the nearby community of Mooresville.
When a group of Texarkana financiers approached Page about establishing
a bank in Redwater. Page agreed and, after the Texarkana financiers
procrastinated, he established the Citizens Bank on his own in 1913.
An avid Democrat,
Page also served as Redwater’s postmaster for several years during
a Democratic administration in Washington. But when Republican Grover
Cleveland became president, Page was on the verge of losing his
postal job.
Page’s wife
Nannie, however, saved the day.
She gave birth
to female quadruplets--reportedly the first born in the U.S.
Learning of
the history-making quads, President Cleveland decided that E.T.
Page could remain a postmaster, regardless of his political leanings.
Redwater also
found itself famous because of the quads. Every time a train stopped
at the local depot, passengers wanted to see the famous little girls.
Gifts poured in from all over the nation.
Meanwhile,
E.T. Page, the rock-ribbed Texas Democrat, was also basking in the
glory.and often referred to his daughters as “the children who kept
a Democrat in office under a Republican administration.”
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