It's Jumpin' in Jefferson

Spring has finally sprung! Yeah! I for one am tired of snow and the cold. After the coldest winter in 33 years, I feel like we have earned the right of a spectacular spring.

Besides all of the beautiful flowers that are starting to bloom, there are other signs of renewal. One of them being all of the festivals going on here in Jefferson. I don't know if you have taken a peek at the Calendar of Events...wow! It is good to come out of hibernation.

Easter Weekend - Truly a weekend that has something for everyone. The citywide rummage sale will be going on. There is no better way to find that little something that you have been looking for. The Historic Jefferson Railway will be hosting the Easter Egg Express complete with an Easter Egg hunt and Easter Train. No weekend would be complete without live entertainment at Auntie Skinners. Wes Jeans will be playing a couple of sets on Saturday night.

4/9 - 4/10 - It is National Library Week and the Historic Jefferson Railway will be celebrating by giving a 10% discount to everyone who donates a book. The semi-annual paranormal conference, History, Haunts and Legends will be on Saturday. It is sure to be a spooky good time! If you are hungry after all of this, then the Marion County Chamber of Commerce will be putting on the 4th Annual Crawfish Boil on the Bayou. It will be good food, good music and good suds.

4/16 - 4/18 - The 10th Annual Outlaw Nationals Rod Run & Antique Car Show and the 8th Annual Diamond Don's Riverport National Vintage Motocross makes this one of the year's premier events here in Jefferson. There are only a few rooms left in the entire town so make reservations now.

4/23 - 4/24 - Do you love the Gone with the Wind movie and everything that goes with it. This weekend we will be celebrating the Tara in Texas festival. Bonnie Blue Butler will be the Guest of Honor at this year's event. There will even be a big rig with airbrushed mural of the movie on hand for you to look at.

So come out of hibernation and come on down. It is Jumpin in Jefferson

Rosa Bland

Last posting, I talked about the new names of our rooms. We made a business decision to change all of the names of our rooms to more historical names to better reflect the wonderful history of this old riverport town. I promised that I would talk about who or what some of these people are in my future postings. Promise kept! Here is the first of seven entries regarding the names of the room.

A good place to start is with the front room. The room used to be called the Polly Anna Room but is now called the Rosa Bland Room.

Jefferson began it's existence as a busy and bustling riverport town. Steamships from New Orleans and St. Louis off of the Mississippi would come to Jefferson through Caddo Lake and up the Big Cypress Bayou carrying agriculture products including cotton and Jefferson quickly became the riverport to the Southwest. Wares and goods would travel as far as Dallas and west Texas on Ox cart and back from Jefferson. Jefferson became the port of entry for what was the Republic of Texas at the time and then later the State of Texas. Jefferson became a boom town where many of the pioneers to Texas first set foot on Texas soil when they disembarked from the steamboats.

During Jefferson's Golden Era as a steamboat port from 1845 until 1875, it became a cosmopolitan town like most port cities with a confluence of cultures and businesses. The architectural styles, which developed in Jefferson during this period of prosperity, resembled those of New Orleans. The homes were primarily of Greek revival design.

When the log raft was removed by the Army Corps of Engineers in the year 1873, the water level in Big Cypress Bayou was reduced and navigation to Jefferson was threatened.

So who or what was the Rosa Bland? She was the last Steamship into the Port of Jefferson before the waters receded to the point that prevented navigation on the Big Cypress Bayou.

Interesting...huh?

New Names - New Attitude

It was love at first site when we walked through this old house. For some strange reason, I felt like I was home...finally. They say sometimes you just know and that is how it was for us. We were not even 100% certain that we wanted to make this change but after walking through this beautiful home, we just knew that this was the right decision at the right moment in our lives. We put in an offer and after a few agonizing months we finally went to closing.

When we moved in, we had a laundry list of things that needed to be fixed and things that we wanted to change. One of the things that we wanted to update was the names of the rooms. Although the names had meaning to the previous owner, they just didn't feel right to us. We have slowly been changing the names and changing the personality of all of the rooms. We are still in the middle of a major remodel but finally all of the rooms have their new names.

The Carriage House is one of the many beautiful, old and historic homes in Jefferson. We never really discussed it much. I think we both just always knew that we wanted to rename the rooms after historical figures of Jefferson. If you have ever been on any of our wonderful historical tours or been to any of our interesting historical museums, then you know that Jefferson has a colorful and lively history full of larger than life characters. It only felt right that a historical home have rooms named after the people who made the town what it is today.

So without any further ado, here are the new names.

Old Name/ New Name

Polly Anna Room/ Rosa Bland Room

Magnolia Room/ Capt. William Perry Room

Garden Cottage/ Ladybird Cottage

Jewel Room/ Ruth Lester Room

Key West Room/ Allen Urquhart Room

Scarlett Room/ Diamond Bessie Room

Darell's Room/ Jay Gould Room

The new name plates should be in this week and we will have them installed on the doors this weekend. I will write about each of these individuals in future posts and will be putting information in each of the rooms about their names sake. So now that we have made this change, I would love to hear every one's thoughts or observations. Please use the comment section below.