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Jefferson is one of
Texas' most historic and well-preserved towns.
Finest collection of ante-bellum
houses in one place in Texas.
Attractions include historic home tours,
river tours and horse and mule drawn tours.
Caddo
Lake State Park
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.usCarnegie
Library City
Trolley Tours - Admissions
Departs from Historic Jefferson Tour Headquaeters
222 East Austin St. 903-665-1665
Historic
Home Tours, and Historic Inns -
Many on the National Refister of Historic
Places.
Jefferson Chamber of Commerce: 903-665-2672 Jay
Gould Private Railroad Car - The "Atlanta"
Admissions. 903-665-2775
Jefferson
Historical Society Museum: In the old Federal Building at the corner of Vale
and Lafayette Streets Hours: Daily 9:30 to 5:00. Admissions. 903-665-2775Mule-Drawn
Wagon Tours - Board across from the museum. Admissions.Diamond
Bessie's Grave: In Oakwood Cemetery
Texas
Heritage Archives & Library: On the corner of Dallas and Market Streets 903-665-1101
Jefferson
Hotels
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| | The
First Presbyterian Church in Jefferson
Photo courtesy Barclay
Gibson, 2005 | |
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Nearby Destinations
Take Hwy 59 South
16 miles to Marshall Caddo
Lake - Northeast of Marshall.
On Big Cypress Bayou on the Texas-Louisiana
state line.
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us
Lake O' the Pines
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us
Jefferson
Hotels > Book Your Hotel Here & Save
Jefferson Tourist
Information
Jefferson Chamber of Commerce: 903-665-2672
Website:
www.jefferson-texas.com |
The
Story of Jefferson
From The
Lake That Wasn't and Was and Wasn't and Is by C. F. Eckhardt ("Charley
Eckhardt's Texas" Column)
The story of Caddo Lake and Jefferson
"...
In 1861 Jefferson was one of the most prosperous towns in Texas, shipping tons
of cotton down Caddo Lake to the logjam, where they were transported overland
a short distance to the Red River and then shipped down the Red to the Mississippi,
loaded onto seagoing ships at New Orleans, and then shipped to Europe to be sold.
Jefferson even had a railroad. Ambitiously named Southern Pacific, Jefferson's
railroad was all of seven miles long, leading from the wharfs in Jefferson back
into the pines. It existed to supply cordwood for the boilers of the Caddo Lake
steamboats.
Everything went fine until 1874. Jefferson became a tourist
destination, and among the signatures in the Excelsior House registration book
is that of Roscoe Conklin. Though little remembered today, Conklin was considered
the finest orator of the second half of the 19th Century. It was in that fateful
year, so the story goes, that diminutive railroad robber baron Jay Gould visited
Jefferson. He proposed to build a railroad in Jefferson - and, or so the story
goes, it was his intention to lay tracks directly in the middle of the town's
main commercial street.
Jefferson told the miniature billionaire - Gould
only stood about five feet tall - that there was no way in the name of Perdition
he was going to mar their beautiful town by running trains down its main street.
Gould wrote "The end of Jefferson!" in the Excelsior House's registration book
and left.
Those who study Gould's career insist he never set foot in
Jefferson, Texas, in his life. Be that as it may, somebody wrote "The end
of Jefferson!" in the Excelsior House's book, and shortly afterward Jefferson
almost did end. For reasons unexplained to this day, the US Army's Corps of Engineers
dynamited the logjam at the end of Caddo Lake, and in less than a week Jefferson
was left-well, hardly high and more soggy than dry, but without its main source
of commerce. Jefferson very nearly did die..."
"Jefferson is
still where it was, though the remains of the wharfs that once docked steamboats
are a long way from the shore of the present Caddo Lake. It does have a railroad
- the Kansas City Southern - though the rails don't run down Main Street. Jefferson
exploits its past, and has acquired Atalanta, Jay Gould's private railroad
car named for a Greek goddess. It, along with Excelsior House and much else, is
exploited for tourism." ...more
Reflections
Reflections
on Jefferson, a Historic Town by Robert G. Cowser
I first heard
my father mention the town of Jefferson when I was quite young. Jefferson is located
approximately forty miles southeast of the farm in Hopkins County where I grew
up... more
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Marion County
Towns and Ghost Towns
County Seat - Jefferson
CometLodiSmithland
Jefferson
Tourist Information
Jefferson
Chamber of Commerce: 903-665-2672
Website: www.jefferson-texas.com
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Your Hotel Here & Save
Jefferson
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