JEFFERSON, TEXAS (Marion County). Jefferson,
the county seat of Marion County, is at the junction
of U.S. Highway 59 and State Highway 49, on Big
Cypress Creek and Caddo Lake in the south central
portion of the county. It was named for Thomas
Jefferson when it was founded in the early 1840s by
Allen Urquhart and Daniel Alley. In the late 1830s
Urquhart, who immigrated to Texas from North Carolina,
received a headright on a bend in the creek; he laid
out a townsite there around 1842. At about the same
time Alley obtained a 586-acre parcel adjacent to
Urquhart's survey and laid out additional streets that
became known as Alley's Addition. In contrast to most
other town planners of the time, who arranged their
plans around a central square, Urquhart laid out the
town along Big Cypress Creek, with its streets running
at right angles to the bayou. Alley's streets, on the
other hand, followed the points of the compass. The
intersection of the two plans gave the town its
distinctive V-shaped layout. As the westernmost
outpost for navigation on the Red River, Jefferson
quickly developed into an important riverport. The
first steamboat, the Llama, reached Jefferson
in late 1843 or early 1844. A post office was
established in 1846, and the town was incorporated in
March 20, 1848, though because of various delays a
city charter was not adopted until 1850. In the same
year the town adopted the aldermanic form of city
government. In 1846 Jefferson became the county seat
of Cass County, upon that county's separation from
Bowie County, and served as such until Linden became
county seat in 1852. A Methodist church was organized
in 1844, followed by the Presbyterian church between
1846 and 1850 and the Baptist church in 1855. The
first newspaper, the Jefferson Democrat, was
printed in 1847, and the following year the Jimplecute,
the town's longest-running and most influential paper,
made its appearance.
During the late 1840s efforts were made to clear
Big Cypress Creek for navigation. Within a few years
steamboats were regularly making the trip from
Shreveport and New Orleans, transporting cotton and
other produce downstream and returning with supplies
and manufactured goods, including materials and
furnishings for many of the early homes. By the late
1840s Jefferson had emerged as the leading commercial
and distribution center of Northeast Texas and the
state's leading inland port.
Among the persistent legends that have grown up
around the town was the belief that Jeffersonians had
shunned the railroads. While much of the city's wealth
during the antebellum and early postbellum years
derived from the river trade, city leaders recognized
early the importance of rail transportation and made
efforts to build a railroad linking the town with
Shreveport and Marshall. Construction of a line began
in 1860, but only forty-five miles of road was
completed by the outbreak of the Civil War.qv
In 1860 Jefferson became county seat of the newly
established Marion County. After Abraham Lincoln was
elected, Marion County voted unanimously for
secession.qv
Jefferson men volunteered for military service in
large numbers, and during the Civil War a meat cannery
was established there, as were factories for boots and
shoes.
After the war the town's economy recovered quickly.
A fire destroyed practically the entire business
section in 1866, but it was rebuilt within a few
years. In 1867 Jefferson became the first town in
Texas to use artificial gas for lighting purposes, and
ice was first manufactured on a commercial scale there
in 1868. By 1870 Jefferson, with a population of
4,180, was the sixth largest city in Texas. Between
1867 and 1870 trade grew from $3 million to $8
million, and in the late 1860s more than 75,000 bales
of cotton were being shipped annually. By 1870 only
Galveston surpassed Jefferson in volume of commerce.
The town reached its peak in 1872, when a
supplementary census reported 7,297 inhabitants.
But in 1873 two events occurred that eventually
spelled the end of Jefferson's importance. The first
was destruction of the Red River Raft, a natural dam
on the river above Shreveport. In November of 1873
nitroglycerin charges were used to remove the last
portion of the raft, which had previously made the
upper section of the river unnavigable. The demolition
of the raft reopened the main course of the river, but
significantly lowered the water level of the
surrounding lakes and streams, making the trip to
Jefferson difficult, particularly in times of drought.
Even more important to Jefferson's decline was the
completion of the Texas and Pacific Railway from
Texarkana to Marshall, which bypassed Jefferson.
Although another line of the Texas and Pacific reached
Jefferson the following year, the development of rail
commerce and the rise of Marshall, Dallas, and other
important rail cities brought an end to Jefferson's
golden age as a commercial and shipping center. Though
efforts were made in later years to raise the water
level on the Big Cypress, the railroads soon displaced
the riverboats, and with them Jefferson.
Another of the misconceptions that surround the
history of the town is that railroad magnate Jay
Gould,qv angered by
the lukewarm response of Jefferson civic leaders to
the railroad, deliberately bypassed the town and wrote
in the register of the Excelsior Hotel that it would
mean "the end of Jefferson." In fact,
reports that Gould placed a curse on the town are
completely unfounded. He did not acquire the Texas and
Pacific until the early 1880s and only visited the
town much later. The rise of the railroads and the
decline of the river traffic nevertheless had dire
results for Jefferson, and after 1876 the town began
to decline. By 1885 the population had fallen to some
3,500.
During the late 1870s the town's attention was
briefly diverted from its economic woes by the
sensational murder trial of Diamond Bessie Moore.
Moore, a native of New York state who had worked for a
time as a prostitute in New Orleans and Hot Springs,
arrived in Jefferson in January 1877 with her consort,
Abraham Rothschild. A few days later she was found
murdered in the woods nearby. Rothschild was charged
with the crime. The court battles that followed became
one of the most celebrated trials of the period.
Rothschild was eventually found not guilty, and the
case was never solved; the incident has continued to
provoke fascination.
Jefferson's economy rebounded briefly in the late
1930s after the discovery of oil in the county. In
1940 it reported some 3,800 residents and 150
businesses. Subsequently the town slowly declined. By
1970 the population had fallen to 3,203, and the
number of businesses had declined to seventy-five. In
1990 the population was 2,199. In the early 1990s
Jefferson was known for its places of historic
interest, including numerous mid-nineteenth-century
homes, churches, and other structures. In 1971 a
roughly forty-seven-block area containing fifty-six
historic structures was listed in the National
Register of Historic Places. In addition, some ten
other buildings have been accorded National Register
status, including the antebellum Excelsior Hotel and
Planters Bank and Warehouse. Every year Jefferson
sponsors a three-day spring historic pilgrimage to
view these sites. Since 1955 the festivities have also
included a reenactment of the Diamond Bessie Murder
Trial.qv
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ben C. Cooner, The Rise and Decline
of Jefferson, Texas (M.A. thesis, North Texas State
University, 1965). Willie Mims Dean, Jefferson,
Texas: Queen of the Cypress (Dallas: Mathis, Van
Nort, 1953). Mrs. Arch McKay and Mrs. H. A. Spellings,
A History of Jefferson (Jefferson, Texas,
1936). Marker Files, Texas Historical Commission,
Austin. Fred Tarpley, Jefferson: Riverport to the
Southwest (Austin: Eakin Press, 1983). Judy
Watson, Jefferson: Rise and Decline of the Cypress
Port (M.A. thesis, Texas Christian University, 1967).
Christopher Long - From "Handbook for Texas
ONLINE"
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