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toledo bend express realty
Water level on 03/18 at 09:30 PM CST
169.86 ft 2.14
Water level for the last 30 days

Weather Forecast

TodayMar 19, 2024
49.2°F
Toledo Bend
Clear conditions throughout the day.

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.