Haunted Texas
Jefferson, Texas....
There were several frontier towns in east Texas which appeared to be on the verge of becoming the next great western city in the mid 1800's. One of these towns was Jefferson. This was a sprawling riverfront community of thirty thousand people and was located in the northwest corner of the state not far from Shreveport, Louisiana. There were plenty of reasons to believe that Jefferson would overtake Houston or maybe even Dallas as the number one commerical center of Texas. There was the bustling cotton economy and the easy access to the Mississippi River and by 1860, newspapers from San Francisco to Boston were calling Jefferson the "Queen of the West". There were flotillas of packet boats piled high with bales of cotton streaming down the Big Cypress River on their way to the market. This went on day and night. Everyday there were steamboats lined up along the three-mile waterfront with bells ringing and whistles blowing. Among the people of Jefferson, a favorite pastime was to gather along the docks and watch the colorful boats come in and unload their goods and then depart.
Planters, gamblers, cattlemen...they all traveled on these steamers. These were some of the wealthiest people in Texas. Many times there were multi-million-dollar deals signed over the card tables or even in the comfortable, smoked-filled salons of the upper decks. A trip either up or down the winding river aboard one of these showboats was thought to be a huge social event in this region. By chance you were born into the right social circumstances during the mid-19th centuryand lived in Old Jefferson then this was indeed a great time to be alive. There were the gentlemen and their ladies of standing playing on the lawns of their gracious homes and the up-and-coming entrepreneurs, planters, and other fortune hunters planned their financial as well as social lives along this bustling, waterfront laden with cotton. There was the talk of the railroad coming to Jefferson and the leading businessmen, well aware of the financial benefits that were to be gained from the railroad, had visions of vast wealth flowing into the area.
Though there was the threat of the war that was beginning to spread across the country, few of the citizens of Jefferson had reason to even think that their good fortune would come to an end...life was to grand to even think of it ever changing. But...the intervention of one man changed the future of Jefferson, Texas.
Jay Gould was one of the most powerful men in the country and probably the most respected as well by the late 1850's. He was a self-made millionaire by the time he was twenty-one and his life story was that of the classical rags to riches success. He enter the leather trade while still a teenager and worked his way to the top. He then went to Wall Street where he became one of the world's most savviest of financiers. Gould had a knack for making money and he quickly amassed a second fortune after he had lost all in the Panic of 1857. He became one of the most ruthless of land speculators in that century after the surrender at Appomattox. He began to buy and sell railroads in much the same way others did with stocks and bonds.
It was no secret that he was determined to succeed and this led him to dabble in a series of unsavory business dealings that included bribery, stock market fraud, as well as judicial injunctions. Gould's attempts to corner the nation's gold supply on Black Friday 1869, was one of the most notorious maneuvers in a long and shady career. This was according to his own biographers.
He once more turned to speculator in the 1870's and aimed at the expanding western railroads such as the Union Pacific.He was still in his forties at this time. He had control of a dozen new lines and by 1890 he was reported to have owned half of the railroads in the Southwest. But when he came to Texas and demanded concessions for his new lines, the people of Jefferson shook their proud heads and instead of bowing down to the undisputed king of the railroads, they seemed to be content to continue on as they had been along the muddy waters of the Big Cypress River.
No one wanted the smoke and and clang of the locomotives going through the streets of their clean and serene city. The people of Jefferson were protective of their tree-lined streets and beautiful frame shops and houses as well as landscaped parks. So when Gould didn't get his way, he left in a huff, taking his railroad with him to a location three miles away. But before he left, he put a curse on the city of Jefferson. This curse was written down on the register of the hotel where he had stayed. It was a chilling prediction that the city of Jefferson would soon dry up and blow away like a Texas tumbleweed.
"It is the end of Jefferson, Texas," he wrote. "Grass will grow in your streets and bats will roost in your belfries if you do not let me run my railroad through your town." The people scoffed at the odd warning though not for long. Up the river near Shreveport, the federal government was already beginning to do dredge work on the Big Cypress. Then as if over night the once-mighty river was reduced to a mere trickle. There was no water route, cotton bales were rotting along the abandoned waterfront docks.
Within a few months of Gould's departure, his eerie prediction for Jefferson had come true. As the Big Cypress dried up...so did the city of Jefferson, Texas. It went into a period of decay from which it wouldn't come out of for years. Grass and weeds soon began to choke the streets and the fluttering wings of bats could be heard in the attics of the deserted homes and belfries of the once proud city of Jefferson.
Planters, gamblers, cattlemen...they all traveled on these steamers. These were some of the wealthiest people in Texas. Many times there were multi-million-dollar deals signed over the card tables or even in the comfortable, smoked-filled salons of the upper decks. A trip either up or down the winding river aboard one of these showboats was thought to be a huge social event in this region. By chance you were born into the right social circumstances during the mid-19th centuryand lived in Old Jefferson then this was indeed a great time to be alive. There were the gentlemen and their ladies of standing playing on the lawns of their gracious homes and the up-and-coming entrepreneurs, planters, and other fortune hunters planned their financial as well as social lives along this bustling, waterfront laden with cotton. There was the talk of the railroad coming to Jefferson and the leading businessmen, well aware of the financial benefits that were to be gained from the railroad, had visions of vast wealth flowing into the area.
Though there was the threat of the war that was beginning to spread across the country, few of the citizens of Jefferson had reason to even think that their good fortune would come to an end...life was to grand to even think of it ever changing. But...the intervention of one man changed the future of Jefferson, Texas.
Jay Gould was one of the most powerful men in the country and probably the most respected as well by the late 1850's. He was a self-made millionaire by the time he was twenty-one and his life story was that of the classical rags to riches success. He enter the leather trade while still a teenager and worked his way to the top. He then went to Wall Street where he became one of the world's most savviest of financiers. Gould had a knack for making money and he quickly amassed a second fortune after he had lost all in the Panic of 1857. He became one of the most ruthless of land speculators in that century after the surrender at Appomattox. He began to buy and sell railroads in much the same way others did with stocks and bonds.
It was no secret that he was determined to succeed and this led him to dabble in a series of unsavory business dealings that included bribery, stock market fraud, as well as judicial injunctions. Gould's attempts to corner the nation's gold supply on Black Friday 1869, was one of the most notorious maneuvers in a long and shady career. This was according to his own biographers.
He once more turned to speculator in the 1870's and aimed at the expanding western railroads such as the Union Pacific.He was still in his forties at this time. He had control of a dozen new lines and by 1890 he was reported to have owned half of the railroads in the Southwest. But when he came to Texas and demanded concessions for his new lines, the people of Jefferson shook their proud heads and instead of bowing down to the undisputed king of the railroads, they seemed to be content to continue on as they had been along the muddy waters of the Big Cypress River.
No one wanted the smoke and and clang of the locomotives going through the streets of their clean and serene city. The people of Jefferson were protective of their tree-lined streets and beautiful frame shops and houses as well as landscaped parks. So when Gould didn't get his way, he left in a huff, taking his railroad with him to a location three miles away. But before he left, he put a curse on the city of Jefferson. This curse was written down on the register of the hotel where he had stayed. It was a chilling prediction that the city of Jefferson would soon dry up and blow away like a Texas tumbleweed.
"It is the end of Jefferson, Texas," he wrote. "Grass will grow in your streets and bats will roost in your belfries if you do not let me run my railroad through your town." The people scoffed at the odd warning though not for long. Up the river near Shreveport, the federal government was already beginning to do dredge work on the Big Cypress. Then as if over night the once-mighty river was reduced to a mere trickle. There was no water route, cotton bales were rotting along the abandoned waterfront docks.
Within a few months of Gould's departure, his eerie prediction for Jefferson had come true. As the Big Cypress dried up...so did the city of Jefferson, Texas. It went into a period of decay from which it wouldn't come out of for years. Grass and weeds soon began to choke the streets and the fluttering wings of bats could be heard in the attics of the deserted homes and belfries of the once proud city of Jefferson.
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