Although we have been to Jefferson, Texas, many times through the years, we always make a stop when we’re near this beautiful historic town. Jefferson was established in 1840 as one of the earliest towns in Texas. Having been recently acquired from the Indigenous Caddo Confederacy, this site was a perfect docking point for steamships with supplies coming from New Orleans, St. Louis and other places on the Red River. With the shipping of goods from the states on the Atlantic seaboard so important for early settlers in the West, Jefferson grew to a population of around 30,000 people on the banks of the Big Cypress Bayou.
The Red River Raft, as it was known in the early years, was a vast logjam on the Red River that, according to the Caddo people, had been there for more than 100 years. It had been impossible to break up until 1879, when the Army Corps of Engineers used recently invented nitroglycerin to blast the logs and permit the river to flow freely. No one foresaw that this would lower the depth of the Red River and make it impossible for the ship trade to reach Jefferson.
