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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 Carnegie
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
Book
Hotels
Jefferson
Hotels > |
| | 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 Tourist Information
Jefferson Chamber of Commerce: 903-665-2672
Website: www.jefferson-texas.com
Where to
Stay
Jefferson
Hotels > Book Your Hotel Here & Save |
The Story
of JeffersonFrom
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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