SMITH FERRY, TEXAS. Smith Ferry, also called Smith's Ferry, was on the Neches River twelve miles east of Colmesneil in far northeastern Tyler County. Randolph R. Smith, for whom the town was named, operated a ferry across the Neches, ran a sawmill, and was the town's first postmaster when the post office opened in 1881. The Trinity and Sabine Railway reached neighboring Colmesneil from the west in 1882, and there was talk of its being extended eastward to Smith Ferry to cross the Sabine and East Texas Railroad and extend to Rockland. A depot was to be built there, but the plans never materialized. Though it had a substantial population during the period 1880 to 1890 (250, dwindling to seventy-five and then to fifty), Smith Ferry listed only a post office and no population from 1904 through the 1920s. The post office was closed in 1931. Afterward, mail came through Colmesneil. One source listed Smith Ferry's population at fifteen in 1986.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: It's Dogwood Time in Tyler County (Woodville, Texas), 1962. S. G. Reed, A History of the Texas Railroads (Houston: St. Clair, 1941; rpt., New York: Arno, 1981).
