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The Neches
River
by Bob Bowman |
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While
environmentalists and water developers duel over the merits of preserving
the Neches River, the debate has largely overlooked the river’s history.
Sometimes called East Texas’
last wild river, the Neches has been flowing though eastern Texas
longer than any of the remnants of mankind, even the earliest Indians.
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The
Neches River in Beaumont
Postcard courtesy Cruse Aviation |
Rising near Colfax in eastern Van
Zandt County and winding 416 circuitous miles to the mouth of
Sabine Lake on the Gulf Coast, the river and its basin was the home
of the 12,000-year-old Clovis culture.
Indian culture reached its peak with the arrival of the Caddos about
780 A.D.
The Caddos developed Mound Prairie in Cherokee
County, the southwesternmost example of the Mississippian mound-building
culture. Artifacts from this era can be seen at the Caddoan Mounds
State Historic Site, a few miles west of Alto.
When the first Europeans came to East
Texas in the sixteenth century, they found various tribes of Hasinai
Indians of the Caddo confederacy living along the stream, which they
called the Snow River--presumably for its white sand bars.
The river was supposedly given its currebt name by Spanish explorer
Alonso De Leon, who named it for the Neches Indians, one of the Caddoan
tribes he encountered.
On a later mission, De Leon was accompanied by Fray Damian Massanet,
who founded San
Francisco de los Tejas, the first Spanish mission in East
Texas, near present-day Weches in Houston County.
Despite the efforts of the Spanish to colonize the river basin, white
settlers did not enter the region until the l820s, When Mexican official
General de Mier y Teran was sent to the region in 1828, he found numerous
Anglo-American settlers, who used hand-driven ferries to cross the
Neches and open the region to settlement.
General Teran built a fort on a bluff of the Neches near present-day
Rockland in Tyler County to serve as a Mexican outpost in the region.
The Mexicans supposedly operated a lead mine on the bluff until the
fort was abandoned. The exact site of the fort remains unclear.
On his first trip to Texas, Stephen F.
Austin wrote in 1821 that the Neches “affords tolerable keel boat
navigation.” Barges were used to float cotton and other farm produce
to Sabine Bay in the l830s and 1840s and steamboats began to travel
up and down the waterway in the late l840s. Some of the earliest steamers
include the Angelina, Florida, Frankie, Katy, Laura, Neches Belle,
Pearl River and Star.
Scattered up and down the length of the river are remnants of history,
including old river ports, logging
camps, sawmill ghost
towns, ferries, and Republic of Texas landmarks. |
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Aerial
view of the Neches River and downtown Beaumont
Postcard courtesy Cruse Aviation |
One of the basin’s
most significant historical sites is old Bevilport, which lies north
of Steinhagen Reservoir. The town, only a shell of its former self,
was the seat of government for the Bevil District and the county seat
of Jasper County.
The two also had some ties with Sam Houston. The general was given
the town’s first lot when it was incorporated by the Republic of Texas
in 1837.
An entry in an old store ledger also shows the hero of San
Jacinto also bought a gallon of kerosene on credit there in the
l830s -- and never paid for it. |
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