History Happens

by VELVET HALL COOL Board President of the Texarkana Museums System

istory happens to overlap often with the evolution of opportunities. This H month, as Texarkana, USA, begins a yearlong Sesquicentennial Celebration, we should look both backwards and forwards at some of the opportunities we have embraced.

Historically, the sale of the first city lots on December 8, 1873, was one of the most significant opportunities for our city. While plans for our town certainly predate what we celebrate as our “birthdate,” December 8 of 150 years ago inarguably solidified plans that the early settlers and business minds had for our community. It formalized the intent of people such as J.W. Davis, A.L. Ghio, Cairo & Fulton Railway, and the T & P Railway to situate our community in a place where they felt business would boom, economy would thrive, and people would establish the comforts of home. These first developers of our town laid the infrastructure for not only necessities such as drug stores and mercantiles, but also for the humanities that filled day-to-day lives with meaning, such as opera houses and ballrooms. Where some might have only seen barriers of state lines, they saw opportunities.

The railroads, which laid the framework not only for our location but also our name, provided the opportunity for the growth of our early hospital industry, restaurants, and law practices. Some early names in this growth, such as Cotton

A.L. Ghio and James McMahon at State Line

Dr. G.U. Jamison

Belt Hospital, Collom & Cotton Belt Hospital on Dudley Avenue, circa 1910 Carney Clinic, the Marquand Hotel, and W.H. Arnold, have survived the test of time, while others have been surpassed.

The beauty of our natural resources today is often seen as a source of leisure and enjoyment through such activities as hiking, camping, fishing, boating, and hunting. Some prime examples are Dooley’s Ferry along the banks of the Red River, the springs at Spring Lake Park, and the marshes of Boggy Creek. However, in our early days, those same natural resources provided the opportunity for industry and economy through glass plants, forestry jobs, cotton seed oil, crops, clay, and natural gas.

Slowly for some, more quickly for others, the opportunities of our town extended to women, African Americans, and immigrants. Mrs. Olivia Smith Moore managed the day-to-day operations of her husband’s profitable businesses after his early death. Dr. G. U. Jamison erected an entire building devoted to African American professionals. Irish immigrants Sir Roger O’Dwyer and Mr. Patrick J. Ahern operated a successful dry-goods store. The Vathis brothers, Greek immigrants, sweetened our community with their confectionery shop. Jobs opened in retail and manufacturing, county and city offices, and hotels and boarding houses for all.

From these humble beginnings, opportunity spurred opportunity. The right mix of vision, encouragement, and rebounding from the inevitable errors that people make along any new path has magnified the prospects of our early 1840s “town site” to our 1873 Texarkana to the TXK of the 21st century.

Born and raised in Texarkana, Velvet Hall Cool has strong ties to both Texas and Arkansas but will always consider herself a Class of ‘87 Razorback. She loves to share stories of her nine wonderful grandchildren. When it comes to listening, you can always perk up her ears with stories that speak to personal history and the lessons we learn during our lifelong journey.