Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net A History of JEFFERSON Marion County, Texas FIFTEENTH PRINTING One-Time Gateway of Texas Retains Its Glory in Rush and Hurry Of Modern Times 1836-1936 A HISTORY OF JEFFERSON This pamphlet contains items of interest that we should know about our home town, and was compiled by Mrs. Arch McKay Mrs. H. A. Spellings Proceeds of sale to be used by Women’s Auxiliary, Christ Episcopal Church. _FIFTEENTH PRINTING_ These items have been taken from articles written by various writers for the Shreveport Times Jefferson Journal Jefferson Jimplecute Houston Post-Dispatch Prescott Daily News Texarkana Twentieth Century Capt. George Todd Nat Sharp Will Hill Thomas And as told by individuals who once lived in Jefferson and by many who are now living and those who lived in Jefferson during her palmy days. JEFFERSON “From the region of the Upper Trinity and the headwaters of the Sabine, each traveler tells us, as he passes, some new tale of how the wilderness is falling under the axe of the builders of habitations and opening up of the earth.” “The town of Jefferson, in the Southern division of our country, was but yesterday a mere name upon paper and now we are told, quite a number of buildings are going up—several persons will have goods there directly. It is a town destined to concentrate a large inland commercial business.” “Immigration from Europe is filling up the beautiful country in the far west.”—Northern Standard, January 16th, 1854. The above article was given through the courtesy of Lola M. Bell, assistant to Advisory Board of Texas Historians. While Texas, this year of 1936 celebrates the Centennial of its independence from Mexican rule, two cities of Texas will attain the anniversary of their birth. In 1836 the townsites of Houston, Texas, and Jefferson, Texas, were established, similarly on the banks of bayous. Houston, the largest of Southern ports today, was founded on Buffalo Bayou and Jefferson, Texas equally important as a center of trade and commerce during its brief reign in the days before and following the Civil War, was located on Cypress Bayou.