Roads

[senior deacon]

I have been studying the KGC in Harrison county, Texas for a few years now. I have visited the historical sites read all I could. Tried to assume little and drink in the history of the area. There are two roads from Marshall to Karnack, Texas. One is called Texas 143 aka the Marshall Karnack hyway. The second Is F.M. ( Farm to Market ) 1998. N o w is the very tricky part. In 1862 there were two more the Shreveport stagecoach road and the other the Marshall Leigh road.

The Shreveport stagecoach road is now all but abandoned very rough and still a dirt road. The Marshall Leigh road is a winding asphalt road that Is hard to keep on because of all the little branch roads that you can get sidetracked on.

In some of my most recent research the Marshall Shreveport old stagecoach road was the .most used back in the day. Not only that but Trammel's trace bisected a 'll for of these roads. Throw in the El Camino Real and mapping the area becomes a whole lot of fun.

I found that country engineers office a treasure trove of information on how people moved In the early year before central planning. Abandoned roads and the worse roads that People just had to travel. Don't assume that the people in 1850's & 1860's had to travel the roads we do today.

All the best , a full cup of coffee to you.


Senior Deacon

 

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[elh]

S D, enjoyed the post you made on the roads. And I may say that in case someone is searching for the older roads, they will have a tough time at best.
Here in Al. they have straightened many roads to make speed a safer thing, some roads fall out by name changing part of it or sometimes all of it.
New roads coming in cut some older roads in two making some end at the newer part and no way to enter the new one. I think the worst part is map makers never consider the older roads at all, Sooo, hunting the old one is sometimes impossible. Another problem is getting permission to track over private property to see where the old one exited at the other side. Maybe if anyone really wants to follow an old road the best way would be aerial unfra red photos, but that is very costly.
Civil war records can help some but can also be very vague in their info.
Anyway, I copied an old 1896 map onto a new topo map and finally found part of an old stage road. The rest of it is covered in houses and asphalt drives.
The old stage road was a trash dump for folks in 1920's through 1940's. real excitement.
thanks for your post.

 

[L.C. BAKER]

The roads were made of water too S.D.! And even some of those have changed by miles now.

L.C.

 

[senior deacon]

L.C. you are right and we had them here in Harrison county as you did up in Nebraska City. Yours was the Missouri river ours the Big Cypress Bayou. River boat landing even a railroad. For a year I looked for the road bed for the railroad only to discover that the gravel road I was on was the rail bed. My problem is that Marshall was not on the bayou and the main road at the time was the only road to Shreveport the old stagecoach road. After it gets to Texas 143 it has been straightened and changed. They have changed it twice since I moved here. Not so much the roads but where they stopped and what they hid. I am of the opinion that they went in to the dense forest and woods to hide their treasure in one of the edge of the little cemeteries that dot the county. West does not have the woods that the east part of the county has. Most travel was to the east towards Shreveport. It would have not been unusually to head east towards Shreveport even if you never intended to go there. There were no union troops around so they could plan and work in safety.

Senior Deacon

 

[L.C. BAKER]

There was some activity for sure. https://books.google.com/books?id=w...nfederate ships on the Missouri river&f=false