Although the details of earliest settlement in Bowie County are not clear, the area was probably settled around 1820, when Miller County, Arkansas, was organized. Hunters and traders were active in the area by 1815, and in contiguous Red River County permanent settlement was underway by 1818. Following the Red River, the Freeman and Custis expedition reached Spanish Bluff, almost due north of the site of present New Boston, before being forced to turn back by Spanish soldiers.īecause the area of Northeast Texas encompassing present Bowie County was considered by many to be part of Arkansas, it was the site of some of the earliest White settlement in Texas. American exploration of the area began in 1806, when President Thomas Jefferson, eager to strengthen the American claim to the area, dispatched Thomas Freeman and Dr. Prolonged European activity in the area began in 1719, when Le Poste des Cadodaquious was founded by Jean Baptiste Bénard de La Harpe. The first European contact with this region more likely occurred, however, between 1687, when Henri Joutel traveled north in search of Henri de Tonti, and 1690, when Tonti returned to Texas in search of survivors of the La Salle expedition. The northernmost of the numerous routes attributed to the Moscoso expedition in 1542 crosses Bowie County if the expedition actually took this route, the area was among the earliest explored parts of the state. The time of the earliest European exploration of the county cannot be conclusively determined. Although White settlement of the county had already begun when these later bands of Indians arrived, relations between the Indians and settlers were relatively peaceful. During the early 1820s bands of Shawnee, Delaware, and Kickapoo Indians immigrated to the area, but they had abandoned their settlements by the mid-1830s. During the last decade of the eighteenth century, due to epidemics and problems with the Osages, the Caddos abandoned the villages they had occupied for centuries. At the time of first European contact, the area was occupied by the Caddo Indians, an agricultural people with a highly developed culture.
At first European contact, wildlife native to the area included buffalo, deer, bear, beaver, and turkey.Īrcheological evidence in contiguous Red River County indicates that this portion of Texas was occupied by Indians as early as the Late Archaic Period, ca. Rainfall is abundant, averaging forty-seven inches a year, and the growing season is long, an average of 235 days annually. Temperatures range from an average high of 94☏ in July to an average low of 30° in January. The county also has abundant forest lands, and in 1981 its timber production totaled 10,292,035 cubic feet. Mineral resources include oil, gas, lignite, and ceramic clay. Most of the soils are either loamy or clayey. The county is drained by the Red and Sulphur rivers, which form its northern and southern boundaries. The terrain is level to gently rolling its elevation ranges from 200 to 450 feet above mean sea level. The county occupies 891 square miles of the East Texas Timberlands. Boston, the county seat, is located near the center of the county at 33☂7' north latitude and 94☂5' west longitude, twenty-one miles west of Texarkana, the county's largest town. Bowie County is in the far northeastern corner of the state, bordered by the Red River on the north, with Arkansas and Oklahoma across its northern boundary and Arkansas to the east.
0 kommentar(er)
