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Jacks, Texas, was another post office located in the vicinity
of the Spears Chapel Community. Kerrdale lasted only about two years or
less and ceased to exist when Jacks came into being.
To put the need for the post office change and the name
change in perspective one needs to look into an unwritten page of Spears
Chapel community history. Eight miles southeast of Burkeville and on the
west bank of the Sabine River was the site of a place called New Columbia,
perhaps better described as an outpost of the Spears Chapel community.
It was a steamboat landing and a river port in all activities that go
on in river ports. This point on the river was an enterprising thriver
during the latter half of the 19th century.
In 1911, J.P. McMahon, Jr. and A. A. McMahon established
a handle factory and a railway cross-tie making operation at New Columbia.
The handles, hand tooled and made of hickory, were carried by mule drawn
wagons to Rosepine, Louisiana, a shipping point on the K.C.&S. railway.
The cross-ties were rafted into units, alternating pine and hardwood,
and floated down the river to Bon Wier, Santa Fe railway river crossing,
where they were caught by a boom, taken from the river, and loaded on
gondola railway cars.
The impact of these two enterprises brought to New Columbia
an influx of people: timber cutters, mule drivers, tie makers, machine
maintenances and operators. Many of the newcomers (employees) lived in
tents stretched over a wood structured platform. To this complex was added
a Commissary - a general store.
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