Genial Jefferson
Where the South meets the West.
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As a guest at the Governor's House, I experienced a definitive example of a Jefferson bed-and-breakfast. The classic Greek Revival cottage was built in 1868 for a trial lawyer named Charles A. Culberson who would serve as governor of Texas from 1895 until 1899. Innkeepers Bill and Llawanda Golden invite guests to stay in the bridal room, a large, comfortable room decorated with an antique wedding gown and silk top hat on the armoire. The house was originally built with two rooms across the front, two more on the left side and a semi-detached dining room and kitchen (so possible kitchen fires couldn't burn down the whole house.) A turn-of-the century owner attached the dining room and kitchen to the house, and now Llawanda prepares elegant breakfasts there on a restored Chambers stove. In keeping with the historic theme, this romantic getaway has no phones, fax machines, or televisions in the two elegant guest rooms.
DINING/ENTERTAINMENT
Parting ways with the ebullient Jimmie Ruth, I was whisked to the Jefferson Hotel in a golf cart to meet my fellow judges for the "Taste of Jefferson" contest. Local restaurants, hotels, and bed-and-breakfasts were presenting their signature dishes for consideration by judges and visitors in booths along Austin Street. The contest revealed a level of culinary sophistication I hadn't expected in a town so small. This was before I knew that chef "Kapp" Kappler's delicious steaks at the Galley Restaurant, regularly lure patrons from as far away as the metroplex, or learned that the upscale bill of fare at the Stillwater Inn is favored by discerning diners throughout the ArkLaTex area. The Galley's tasty spread was the winner that day, with meatballs from Lamache's, a family Italian restaurant, running a close second.
The night of my arrival I had a chance to discover Jefferson's unexpected nightlife. As I emerged from dinner at the Galley on Saturday night, raucous live music spilled out of Annie Skinner's Bar while tourists disembarked from a horse-drawn carriage. Still others strolled arm and arm, window shopping at downtown antique stores. Farther down the block, there was drinking and dancing to live music at the Diamond Bessie Saloon and Dance Hall, an authentic turn-of-the century saloon named for the doomed Bessie Moore. Watching the tourists alight from the carriage, I realized what a common sight that must have been when Austin Street was the cosmopolitan sister of Rue Royale in New Orleans and Galveston's Strand.
In its prime, Jefferson welcomed the famous theatrical performers of the day: Oscar Wilde, Enrico Caruso, Lilly Langtry, and Sarah Bernhardt. Current visitors to Jefferson can observe Professor D.L. Smith in his performances as Mark Twain at the Galley Restaurant on alternating Saturday nights. The white-haired, mustachioed Smith dons a white suit and strolls up and down Austin Street visiting with tourists before he performs a one-hour show sharing the wit, wisdom and whopping lies of one of America's most beloved humorists. And during the Jefferson Historical Pilgrimage the first weekend of May, the Excelsior House -- and that hardworking garden club -- sponsor a play based on the transcripts of Abe Rothschild's murder trial.
OUTDOOR/CADDO LAKE
Located deep in the tall piney woods of East Texas, Jefferson offers visitors a completely different climate and atmosphere than any other region of the state. To a daughter of the West Texas desert like myself, it seems to have descended from another country -- the verdant, slow-moving antebellum South versus my flat, wild West. Forests of stately pines block out the horizon, blue waters sparkle and lush vegetation quickly reclaims uncultivated ground. The garden club's first project in 1939 was to plant a dogwood trail and ever since, tourists visit Jefferson to enjoy the blooming of the dogwoods and to inhale the seductive fragrance of magnolia blossoms. Jefferson is also home to two restored authentic plantation properties -- The Freeman Plantation and Twin Oaks -- both offering regular tours.
History buffs eager to get a sense of steamboat travel can make the short drive to Uncertain, Texas, to catch a paddlewheel riverboat tour of Caddo Lake. Turning Basin Riverboat offers a one-hour history and nature tour of Big Cypress Bayou beginning in the "turning basin" where steamboats turned around to head back downriver. Archeology enthusiasts will want to visit the site of the former Caddo Indian village of Sha-Childni-ni on the James Bayou, a tributary of Caddo Lake (on the south side of the bayou, between Jefferson and Vivian, Louisiana). The peace-loving, hospitable Caddo tribe made its home in the lush Cypress Valley for hundreds of years before moving to Oklahoma in the 1830s. The historic village site was discovered in 1997 by a Louisiana Archeology Society team and is attracting the attention of scholars in Native American archeology as well as modern Caddo Indians and tourists.
NEARBY JEFFERSON
If plentiful accommodations, good restaurants and nightlife, historical tours and local color aren't enough to draw you to Jefferson, there are still other enticements. Antique shopping in Jefferson and surrounding small towns is a prime activity and the nearby village of New Summerfield is widely known for the quality and variety of bedding plants grown in its many greenhouses. I'm not much of an outdoor gal, but I have it on good authority that the fishing is prime on Caddo Lake and Lake 'O the Pines is less than a thirty-minute drive, featuring boating, skiing, and fishing in its pristine waters. Life in a 1930s oil boom town is chronicled at the East Texas Oil Museum on the campus of Kilgore College in Kilgore. In every season, surrounding towns offer all manner of tours and festivals. Canton is renown for the First Monday Trade Days and people travel from all over the state to see the fabulous Wonderland of Lights in Marshall from Thanksgiving until New Year's. Gilmer boasts the annual Yamboree with its pie-baking contest, Tour de Yam bike race and Tater Trot run, and the alluring casinos of Shreveport, Louisiana, are only a short drive away.
Though cities such as Dallas and Houston long ago replaced Jefferson as centers of business and commerce in Texas, the "Queen of the Cypress" retains her flavor as a busy port city with an open, welcoming spirit. Tiny, vibrant Jefferson puts me in mind of sprawling, raucous New Orleans, sister cities once bound by a river of commerce that are still alike in very important ways. Both cities have seen more, experienced more and accepted more as passageways to the larger world. Both cities celebrate their history and embrace restoration, keeping them remarkably hospitable and alive today. As the history-loving child of an area of Texas that can claim little more than a century of existence, the respect and preservation of the past I found in Jefferson is one of the magnets that will draw me back. The other will be my curiosity to see what those dynamic garden club gals are up to next.
LINKS/LISTINGS
Jefferson, Texas website
Marshall Chamber of Commerce website
Lodging
The Excelsior House (211 W. Austin, 903/665-2513)
Jefferson Hotel (124 W. Austin, 800/226-9026)
Governor's House (321 Walnut, 800/891-7933)
More Bed & Breakfasts
AAA Reservations
Dining
Galley Restaurant (121 Austin, 903/665-3641)
The Stillwater Inn (203 E. Broadway, 903/665-8415)
Lamache's (124 w. Austin, 903/665-6177)
More Restaurants
Entertainment
Candlelight Tour of Homes (tickets: 800/299-1593, info: 903/665-3692)
Skinner's Bar (107 W. Austin Street, 903/665-7121)
L.J. Carriage Service (903/846-2504)
Freeman Plantation (Hwy 49 West, 903/665-2320)
Twin Oaks (Hwy 134 South, 903/665-3042)
Caddo Lake Boat Rentals (888/325-5459)
Turning Basin Riverboat
Caddo Outback (903/665-2222)
East Texas Oil Museum in Kilgore (Hwy 259 at Ross, 903/983-8295)
Canton's First Monday Trade Days (903/567-6556)
Wonderland of Lights in Marshall (800/953-7868)
East Texas Yamboree in Gilmer (903/843-2413)
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