1855 - U. S. government sets up the Brazos Indian reservation where the Caddo and other tribes are placed. 1857 - Construction begins on the El Paso and Pacific railroad line, near what would become Texarkana. More that 50 miles were graded before the Civil war began. Work resumed in 1869. 1857 - Martha C. Runnels, wife of Texas legislator Howell W. Runnels, acts as the First Lady of Texas for Gov. Hardin Richard Runnels, her bachelor brother-in-law, until 1859. She is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery. 1858 - Post office is established in RONDO, Arkansas. 1859 - A group of white settlers decide to rid Texas of all remaining Indian tribes - forcing about 300 Caddo Indians to march to Oklahoma. A white man who helped them make their "escape" is killed for assisting them. 1861 - Bowie County musters its men in New Boston. All are mounted on horseback. 1864 - A Texas division of the Confederacy guarded the Spring Bank crossing in Miller County against Federals who might try to invade Texas. The camp was called Camp Sumpter. 1864 - General Banks leads Union troops up the Red River as far as Shreveport, La., about 70 miles south of here. He is turned back there by generals Sterling Price and Richard Taylor. It was the only serious threat on Bowie County, and many of the forces under Price and Taylor were from Bowie and Miller Counties. 1864 - Fall: Archives from the state capitol are moved by Confederate soldiers and stored for awhile in a store in Rondo, Ark., as Union soldiers advanced on Little Rock. In this way, Rondo lays claim to once being the temporary state capital. Confederate Gen. Albert Pike moves his wife and children to Rondo during the Union occupation of Little Rock. 1864 - Gus Moore comes to the place that would become Texarkana. Four families were already here: The Garrett Family, Eli Moores, near the future New Boston Road, John Nix of the future Ninth Street, and Mr. Wooten in what would become the Spring Lake Park area. 1868 - Nov. 24: Composer Scott Joplin is born in what would become Texarkana. His family lived in the 600 block of Hazel Street. He attended Orr School, located the 800 block of Laurel Street. He played piano at local clubs and dance halls in town. He left town when he was about 17. 1868 - Arkansas is readmitted into the Union following the Civil War. 1869 - Jan. 6; Cullen Baker, the Swamp Fox of the Sulphur, has his whiskey drugged by his father-in-law and passes out. He is then shot repeatedly. The regions most notorious outlaw is dead at age 34. 1869 - Railroad magnate John C. Fremont tells audiences in England of a thriving city in a bountiful region bordering three states. This was optimistic invention, of course, but some historians see this as an indicator that Texarkana was once planned for the point where Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana meet. 1869 - A man named Swindle from Louisiana cooked up concoction that was purported to have medicinal value and called "Texarkana Bitters". The real credit for naming this spot this the name Texarkana has been given to railroad surveyor Col. Gus Knobel, who nailed a sign reading Texarkana to a tree stump where Union Station would be. 1870 - Aug. 31: Steamer "Texarkana" sank on the Red River. It was part of a line of steamboats operated by Calvin Monroe Hervey in Miller County from New Orleans to Fulton, Ark. In 1885, Hervey was appointed by the governor to represent Arkansas in the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition. Hervey also owned a plantation on the Red River he named Texarkana. 1870 - Texas is readmitted into the Union following the Civil War. 1871 - March 3: Texas & Pacific Railroad is chartered by the federal government to build a military and post road and from Marshal to Texarkana. A yellow fever epidemic broke out during construction of the rail bed, and rainstorms caused much delay and damage. 1872 - Plans were being made to lay railroad track from Fulton, Ark., to Shreveport , La., to connect with an existing track that connected to Marshall, Texas. But Shreveport didn't want the track to Fulton to be built because officials thought it would detract from the robust river boat traffic there. The alternative plan routed the Cairo & Fulton lines from Fulton, west across the Red River to the state line, where it would meet the Texas & Pacific line coming east. Texarkana would be born of this decision. 1872 - Railroad builders ask town fathers in nearby Rondo, Ark., to finance routing the tracks through their town. They balked at the idea, thinking the rails would come there anyway. They didn't and the importance of Rondo began to diminish while the significance of Texarkana would grow. 1872 - February 17: Earliest land title recorded in the business district was recorded on this date. It was filed with the Bowie County clerk on March 20. 1873 - The Red River is finally cleared of log jams and debris and steamboat traffic begins. Spring Bank in Miller County is a shipping point for the area. 1873 - Lumbermen, railroad builder and philanthropist William Buchanan comes to the area before it officially exists as a city. 1873 - Texarkana, Texas, Fire Department was created. The Arkansas- side Fire Department was created the following year. For the next 18 years these would be volunteer organizations. By 1890, the Arkansas side claims 1,000 feet of hose, an engine-house and an alarm system. By 1892, the Texas side has a steam engine pulled by horses. 1873 - George M. Clark started town's first business, a combination drug and grocery store. Whiskey was part of his stock. 1873 - Dec. 8: Texas and Pacific Railroad sells lots here. J. W. Davis buys the first one for $350.00. The McCartney Hotel now sits on the land that he bought. 1873 - Dec. 11: Spencer Rice Collom, a Hooks, Texas Farmer, sells the first bale of cotton for 12 cents a pound. 1873 - Dec. 18: A group meets on the Texas side to organize a town. A man named Wosson was named city chairman. He was later elected mayor. 1873 - Dec. 28: Texas and Pacific Railroad reaches Texarkana only hours before the company's building charter would expire at the end of the year. Linking the two rail lines created a line that ran from St. Louis in the north into Texas in the south. The two lines would one day become part of the great Missouri-Pacific Railroad system. 1874 - January: Anthony L. Ghio opens the first store building at what would be the intersection of Main and Broad Streets. He sold whiskey and cigars. He later opened the cities first opera house and was elected mayor three times. He and a partner, L. B. Fish, built the first road to what would become Spring Lake Park. 1874 - Completion of the Cairo and Fulton bridge over the Red River marks the establishment of continuous service between Dallas and St. Louis. 1874 - June 12: The city of Texarkana, Texas, is granted a charter. Captain O. T. Lyon was elected Mayor. 1874 - September: First school opens in Texarkana in connection with the first Catholic Church. 1874: Gate City News publishes its first issue. 1874 - T. Boas and W. H. McCartney build the Marquand Hotel, the city's first, near the current site of Union Station. 1874 - Miller County, formerly a part of Lafayette County, is reorganized by the Arkansas General Assembly as its own entity. At that time, the population was about 1,000. The boundaries that were established by this act are the same boundaries that exist today. 1874 - J. M. Benefield starts the Benefield Hotel on Broad Street and Texas Avenue. 1874 - Methodist church organized at Sixth and Olive streets with 13 members. It is the first Protestant church in town and later becomes First Methodist Church, State Line Avenue and Fourth Street. 1874 - Mount Sinai Congregational Temple was founded by a Jewish Confederacy veteran. The current temple, dedicated in 1948, is at 1319 Walnut Street. 1874 - Rose Hill Cemetery founded as "city cemetery". 1875 - Miller County begins operations in a rented courthouse with a $54,000. debt. 1875 - Ingersoll is established in Bowie County. It is named for Robert Green Ingersoll, a famous agnostic of the day, by mill workers who were contemptuous of religion. Residents voted to rename the town Redwater. 1875 - N. J. Flint is hired as the first city marshal. 1875 - Hake's Bank, Texarkana's first, opens its doors in a small wooden building where the Texarkana Historical Museum now sits. 1875 - May 11: Act is passed in the Texas Legislature forcing trains to stop 30 minutes on the Texas side of town. This came about because the Texas & Pacific Railway earlier promised to build a depot on the state line, and instead wanted to stop their trains only on the Arkansas side of town, thus creating an Arkansas railroad town. However, the passage of this act was a great inconvenience and forced the railroad to reconsider and ultimately build the depot on the State Line in 1875. 1875 - City Institutes dog tax: $1 on each mail, $2 on each female. 1875 - Home of Eli Moores is built near what is now the intersection of New Boston Road and Waterall Street. 1875 - Mount Zion Baptist Church opens on Elm Street. It is Texarkana's first black church. 1875 - Col. W. J. Allen starts the Texarkana News, the towns second newspaper. 1876 - J. S. Ragland went into business on Broad Street selling books, magazines, tablets, tables and chairs. Ragland office equipment operated in some form until the 1990's. 1876 - J. W. Davis erects the Cosmopolitan on Front Street. It had no electricity or running water. 1876 - Oct. 30: A group meets to organize St. James Episcopal Church. A wooden chapel is built in 1878 costing less than $1,500. In 1927, the sanctuary currently in use was built on Olive Street. 1877 - A. L. Ghio and Captain F. M. Henry build te first opera house in Texarkana. Within a year Ghio was also developing Spring Lake Park. 1877 - Oct. 23: W. B. Weeks, newspaperman arrives in town. He later became president of the Texarkana Pioneer Association for 22 years. 1877 - August 4: Fifteen former Mount Pisgah Baptist Church members form First Baptist church in Texarkana. On Oct. 12, 1877, the lot at Fourth and Pine streets was purchased. A church was built the following year. The church and charter are now located on Moores Lane in North Texarkana. 1877 - Thomas L. L. Temple, 18, comes to Texarkana and makes a fortune in the timber business. He later becomes a charter member of the United States Chamber of Commerce. 1877 - William G. Wadley arrives in town and builds a planing mill at the current site of Buhrman-Pharr Hardware Co. and a saw mill on State Line Avenue. He built the first logging railroad in the vicinity: it was 25 miles long. 1879 - Oct. 1: Commercial National Bank becomes the city's second Bank. 1879 - St. Agnes Academy, which later became Sacred Heart Academy, was established. It ceased operation in the 1960's. 1879 - The store that became Buhrman-Pharr Hardware Co. in 1908 was established. It still exists today. 1879 - Bank that would one day become the Texarkana Historical Museum is built. It is likely the first brick building in town. 1879 - Rehkopf Mattress Co. is established. It went out of business in 1973, the year of the city's Centennial. 1879 - Texarkana tries to wrestle county seat from Boston and fails. 1880 - Twenty-one local citizens meet and petition to incorporate the city of Texarkana, Ark. But they were not without detractors. A counter petition was signed by 15 citizens who opposed the town government being organized. 1880 - Aug. 10: The city of Texarkana Arkansas is granted a charter by Miller County Judge H. W. Edwards. Br. H. W. Beidler was elected Major. 1880 - Sept. 30: P. T. Barnums circus, The Greatest Show on Earth, plays Texarkana. 1880 - Nov. 12: The city government of Texarkana, Ark. Is founded. 1880 - Citizens Bank opens. 1880 - Texarkana's population is 3,223. 1880 - Cotton Belt railroad builds a line from Big Sandy, Texas, to Texarkana. Two years later, it would extend the line to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. 1880 - Miller County Population hits 10,000. 1880 - The "Great Raft" on the Red River was finally broken by army engineers using explosives. This opened the way for heavy steamboats traffic into this region. 1881 - Jan. 11: More that 200 immigrants pour through Texarkana during the coming two weeks, bound for other destinations. 1881 - May 21: Arkansas gives permission for the Texas and St. Louis Railway to build a narrow gauge railroad from Texarkana to the Arkansas-Missouri border. Texarkana receives the new railroad line in December 1882. 1881 - July 11: Gate City railway Co. is chartered. It never functions, but represents the city's first effort at providing street transportation. 1881 - W. L. Whitaker arrives in Texarkana and enters the logging business. In order to reach more timber, he organized the Texarkana Northern railway in 1885. In 1889 Whitaker sells this line to Kansas City, Nevada and Fort Smith railroad and by 1893 the company has tracks extended for Texarkana to Kansas City. 1881 - A group of businessmen meet to rid the town of "rascals". They left the meeting and headed to Front Street, where they "ordered every known bad character to summarily leave the city", according to a newspaper report. " We know it was not strictly in accordance with revised status, but under the protection of the law, matters for years past have gone from bad to worse." 1881 - During one two - week period, Iron Mountain railroad brings 2,400 immigrants to Texarkana. 1881 - Aug. 11: Texarkana Street railway Co. was chartered. 1881 - Dec. 25: From a newspaper report: A bad case of smallpox has been seen on the streets yesterday, mingling with the crowd. He was arrested and taken out of the corporation and quarantined in an outhouse. The people are afraid the decease will be epidemic. 1881 - Dec. 30: From Newspaper report: John Smith, a laborer, comes to town to make some purchases, and while standing in front of a saloon, a cowboy, named Tom Barry, began a tirade of abuse. Smith turned to defend himself, when Barry shot Smith, mortally wounding him. The citizens seized Barry and placed a rope around his neck, but the city marshal succeeded in preventing the lynching and took him to jail. 1882 - Sept. 3: Southwestern Telephone and Telegraph Exchange of New York was granted a franchise by Texarkana, Texas and Texarkana, Ark., to establish and run a telephone exchange. It located an office at 219 E. Broad St. and built a magneto exchange that required large crank-type telephones and batteries. 1882 - Ben Collins moves here from Kentucky and teams with George W. Fouke to build one of the largest Sawmills in North Texas. The also built a railroad line from Texarkana to Shreveport. 1882 - July 12: At least 28 people die when the Paragon Saloon collapsed in a storm and caught fire. It is still the city's worse disaster. Victims were buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery. 1882 - A business that would become F. W. Offenhauser Insurance Agency was founded. By 1889 it had taken over the building that would one day become the Texarkana Historical Museum. 1882 - Texarkana Tittle and Abstract Co. is founded. 1882 - Dec. 15: Groundwork begins on a new Texas-St. Louis passenger depot on State Line Avenue. The building will be about 40-by 300-feet. 1883 - Hake's Bank is absorbed by First National Bank. It was forced to close in 1895. 1883 - Central Christian Church conducts services in a public school building. The city bought the church's property in 1931 to build the downtown post office. In 1932, the church dedicated a new sanctuary at Ninth and Walnut streets. 1883 - Canaan Baptist church is established on Laurel Street. 1883 - St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church is started. 1884 - Texas Central School, located in the 600 block of Spruce Street, is constructed for students in grades one through seven. 1884 - The "Ace of Clubs House", as it is commonly known, is built at Fifth and Pine streets. The house is now part of the Texarkana Museum System. 1885 - Texarkana and Northern railroad build a logging line that later would become part of the Kansas City Southern system. Texarkana would soon become a hub for railroad transportation with more than 30 passenger trains stopping in Texarkana during its heyday. Trains were often three car affairs with express, mail and passenger cars pulled by wood burning locomotives. Passengers were not very comfortable and if the engines ran out of fuel, rail crews were sent to cut more until the trail reached the next woodpile. 1885 - Texarkana now claims at least 25 saloons. Above J. W. Rea's Saloon were offices of three doctors. Physicians above, pharmacy below? 1885 - Voters in Bowie County decide to move the county seat to Texarkana in a bitter election. Another election was held in 1890, and by a slim margin voted to move the county seat back to Bowie Counties center, which survey had determined was a mile south of where New Boston had sprung up along the railroad track. (See 1890 note) 1885 - H. W. Dillard was principal of a black school on the Texas side of town. School name is not known. 1885 - Scott Joplin leaves Texarkana to conquer the music world. 1885 - Dr. J. H. Wooten, Jack H. Wooten, and F. G. Wooten established a daily newspaper that was later purchased by the Daily Texarkanian. 1886 - A mule car line begins providing street transportation. The company was later given permission to electrify its line but never did. 1886 - Oct. 18: St. Louis, Arkansas, and Texas Railway (formerly the Texas and St. Louis Railway), convert from a narrow gauge line to a standard gauge because of competitive pressures. 1887 - Texarkana National Bank, the city's first permanent bank, organized. It had 23 stockholders and $100,000 in capital stock. In 1914 it moved to Broad Street and State Line Avenue. In 1924 it built an eight-story office building. In the 1990's, it would be absorbed by Hibernia National Bank. 1887 - First public school opens in Texarkana. Ninety students attended classes the first week. That had grown to 276 by years end. 1887 - St. James African Methodist Church is begun. 1887 - Timber king T. L. L. Temple settles here. 1887 - County seat is moved to Texarkana amid great controversy and courthouse established in the 200 block of Broad Streets. It didn't stay there long. Two years later a fire destroyed the building. 1887 - Baseball comes to the city. The Dixon boys played on a field where the Miller County Courthouse now stands. 1888 - First police force is established on the Texas side. 1888 - Newspaper reports that 18 of Texarkana's 23 saloons are located on Broad Street. 1888 - The town of "Boggy" is built on the banks of the Boggy Creek around a large sawmill. 1888 - A Methodist Church made by knotless pine as built in Dalby Springs to house a congregation that had existed for almost 50 years. At the turn of the century, Dalby Springs became a summer health resort, as people would seek out and drink from the red water springs to get relief (they hoped) from Kidney and stomach trouble. 1888 - May: Samuel Jackson Morris arrives in Bowie County with wife fanny Eddins Morris, and infant son. He is one of the earliest settlers of the Old Boston Community. He was organizer of Farmers State bank and its president in 1925 - 1926. 1888 - The first black physician arrives in Texarkana. His name is Shedd. The second to arrive was Dr. Mathew E. Stevens who practiced from 1891 - 1911. 1888 - Interstate College is opened in the section of town that today is known as College Hill. for which, of course, its name is derived. 1889 - New York Banker William R. Grim arrives in Texarkana. Later donates land for athletic field that will be named after him, (Texas Highs Grim Stadium). 1889 - Jan. 21: Fire guts Bowie County Courthouse in Texarkana and virtually all records are destroyed. Soon afterwards, county residents outside the city petitioned for an election to relocate the courthouse. The election was held in 1890 and the county residents, by a slim majority, voted to move the courthouse back to the county's center. 1889 - Texarkana Gas and Electric Co. was organized. It built the first electric light service in Texarkana. 1889 - Miles Chapel CME Church is organized. 1889 - First railroad depot built in Texarkana burns down. A first Union Station, and later a second, the one still standing, would follow. 1890 - Jan. 8: America's first quadruplets were born to Earnest T. Page and Nannie E. Page of Redwater in Bowie County. Page would go on to establish The Citizen's Bank in 1913, which would later become Guaranty State Bank. 1890 - September: Texarkana Gas and Electric Railway Co. is organized. It later forfeits the franchise. 1890 - Union Station is built at the junction of State Line Avenue and the rail yards. This building predates the Union Station that is still standing on Front Street. 1890 - For the only time in its history, the population of the Arkansas side is greater than the population of the Texas side, 3,528 to 2,852. 1890 - J. F. Shaw pulls his Seventh Day Baptist congregation out of Texarkana and established a colony in Fouke, Ark. He is credited with being the towns founder. The town was incorporated in 1911 and Shaw was its first mayor. The group left Texarkana because they felt they were being persecuted for claiming Saturday as the Sabbath. Prior to this, Shaw was the first pastor of First Baptist Church at Fourth and Pine streets in Texarkana. He became disenchanted and converted to Seventh Day Baptist. 1890 - Angry Texarkanians dump county records in a heap on the site where a new county courthouse would be built a year later. Along with gaining the county seat and courthouse in the election, the newly established county seat also claimed the predecessor's name, Boston. The former Boston, three miles tot he south, would soon be renamed Old Boston. And of course, New Boston was still growing a mile to the north along the railroad tracks. That's how there came to be three Bostons. Ultimately, New Boston would get the courthouse in the 1980's, after the one built in 1891 burned down. 1890 - D. E. Holiday is appointed the first police chief on the Arkansas side. 1891 - Jan. 12: St Louis, Arkansas, and Texas Railway is incorporated into the St. Louis Southwestern railway (Cotton Belt Route). It served Texarkana under this name for 82 years. 1891 - Bowie County Courthouse, a two story brick building, is constructed in Boston, Texas, in geographic center of the county. It had previously been at three other locations. It burned down on Aug. 12, 1989, and a new Courthouse was built in New Boston, along the Interstate. 1891 - Cornerstone is established for a new post office to straddle State Line Avenue and serve both sides of the city. 1892 - Red Lick Methodist Episcopal Church, South, lists 70 members on its register. In 1992, a historical marker was dedicated at the church. 1893 - Post Office - Federal Courthouse is built on State Line Avenue. It is replaced 40 years later with the structure that exists today. 1893 - Courthouse (not the current one) built in Miller County at a cost of $80,000. It was demolished in 1939 to make way for the building that now stands. That building cost $500,000. 1894 - Land was purchased for the first public school in Texarkana, Ark. 1894 - First Presbyterian Church was organized from both Texas and Arkansas. Ten years later the Arkansas members with drew to organize First Presbyterian Church, Arkansas, with 187 charter members. 1895 - State Bank of Texarkana is organized. In 1920 it consolidated with another financial institution and became State First National Bank. And in the 1990's was absorbed by Regions Bank. 1895 - Calvin Monroe Hervey, who managed a large plantation in Lost Prairie, dies. 1896 - Allen Monument Co. founded. 1896 - April 15: Free mail delivery service is established in Texarkana. William H. Mathew Sr. becomes one of five letter carriers. 1897 - Set. 11: Trail service between Kansas City and Port Arthur, Texas, begins. Three years later the line goes into bankruptcy and is reorganized as the Kansas City Southern railroad. 1898 - E. C. East goes into the mortuary business. East Funeral Home still exists today. 1898 - First bicycle arrives in the city. 1898 - Timber baron William Garrett Wadley moves to Shreveport. He had been in Texarkana since 1887. 1899 - Orr School, one of the oldest black schools on the Arkansas side, burns down. ************************************************************************ USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is obtained from the contributor of the file. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizat ions. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-comm ercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor, OR legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Submitted by Vicki Richardson mailto:GVRICHARDS@aol.com ************************************************************************