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Texarkana established
On this day in 1873, the community of Texarkana was established, and the
first store in town, a combination drug and grocery store operated by
George M. Clark, opened for business. The town is in two states, Texas and
Arkansas, and near another, Louisiana; the name Texarkana combines the
three state names. The strategic position of Texarkana is the keynote to
its history and development. The Great Southwest Trail, for hundreds of
years the main line of travel from Indian villages of the Mississippi
River country to Indian villages of the South and West, passed by a Caddo
Indian village on the future Texarkana site. When the builders of the
Cairo and Fulton Railroad crossed Arkansas in the late 1850s, and by 1874
pushed their rails beyond the Red River to the border of Texas, they met
at Texarkana the railhead that had been extended to the state line by the
builders of the Texas and Pacific. The road from the south bank of the Red
River was completed on January 15, 1874, to the state line, where the city
of Texarkana had been established the previous month at the site where the
two roads would join. In 2000, Texarkana was a transportation, commercial,
and industrial center with a population of 61,230.
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- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- TEXARKANA, TX
- BOWIE COUNTY
- CADDO INDIANS
- TEXAS AND PACIFIC RAILWAY
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Southwestern colleges form athletic conference (1914)
- Mission church begins remarkable run (1755)
- Bee County comes into being (1857)
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