One The Road Again -- First Stop: Texarkana

TEXARKANA was named for its location on the state line between Bowie County, Texas, and Miller County, Arkansas, only a short distance above the Louisiana boundary. The three parts of its name – Tex – Ark – Ana -- honor the three states. There is some debate about the origin of the name. It is known that it was in use before the town's founding. According to one tradition, the name came from a steamboat known as the Texarkana, which ran the Red River as early as 1860. Others claim that a man named Swindle, who ran a general store in Red Land, Bossier Parish, Louisiana, manufactured a drink called "Texarkana Bitters." Yet another story claims that when the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad was building its line through the area, Col. Gus Knobel, the surveyor, coined the name and erected a large sign at the site.

Several regional Caddo groups farmed the area thousands of years before the city was created.The Great Southwest Trail, for hundreds of years the main line of travel from Indian villages of the Mississippi River country to those of the South and West, passed by a Caddo Indian village on the site that is now Texarkana. Seventy Indian mounds are within a 30 mile radius of Texarkana. By the beginning of the 19th century, the Caddo had left the area.

In the late 1850s, the builders of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad crossed Arkansas completing the railway to the Texas border in 1873. The road from the south bank of Red River was completed on January 15, 1874, to the state line, where the city of Texarkana had been established on December 8, 1873, at the site where the two roads would join. The Texas and Pacific Railway Company laid out the Texas side of the town. In 1876 Texarkana, Texas, was granted a charter under an act of the state legislature.

State Line Avenue, the town's main street, was laid out exactly along the dividing line between the two states. Initially the town had only a single post office, on the Arkansas side of the town. Those living on the Texas side requested a post office of their own. Postal officials granted the request, and a post office, known as Texarkana, Texas, operated from 1886 to 1892, when it was closed. For some time after that the post office was known as Texarkana, Arkansas, until Congressman John Morris Sheppard secured a postal order changing the name officially to Texarkana, Arkansas-Texas.

By 1896 Texarkana had a waterworks, an electric light plant, five miles of streetcar lines, gas works, four daily and weekly newspapers, an ice factory, a cotton compress, a cotton oil mill, a sewer system, brick schools, two foundries, a machine shop, a hotel, and a population of 14,000. In 1907 Texarkana, Texas, was accorded city status, and granted a new charter.

During the Great Depression the number of businesses declined but the town's economic fortunes recovered by the early 1940s, with the construction of Red River Army Depot and the Lone Star Army Ammunition plant.

In 1948 Texarkana, the junction of 4 railroad systems with 8 outlets, was one of the major railroad centers of the Southwest. Industries were built around 3 natural resource: a rich timbered area, fertile agricultural lands, and abundant mineral deposits.

While commercially one city, Texarkana consists of 2 separate municipalities, aldermanic in form, with 2 mayors and 2 sets of councilmen and city officials. There is a cooperative arrangement for the joint operation of fire department, food and dairy inspection, sewage disposal, environmental sanitation, and supervised recreational programs. The Federal Building has the distinction of being the only building of its kind situated in two states.

The State Line Post Office and Federal Building is one of the most unique features of Texarkana; it is the only Post Office sitting in 2 states. The building straddles State Line Avenue, Texas and Arkansas, and has separate zip codes, 71854 for Texarkana, Arkansas and 75501 for Texarkana, Texas. Built in 1932-33 the structure features a base of pink granite from Texas and walls of limestone from Arkansas. Next to the Supreme Court Building in Washington, DC, this is the most photographed courthouse in the United States.

My picture of the sign didn't come out -- Thanks to Roadside America.com for the State Line Pic!