Genial Jefferson
Where the South meets the West.
The antique dining room table was set with silver, crystal, and the innkeeper's best presidential Lenox. Candles flickered as we sipped coffee. This was breakfast Jefferson-style, in the perfectly restored Governor's House Bed & Breakfast. "A friend will be joining us," innkeeper Llawanda Golden had informed me when I emerged from my room that morning. As a visiting food journalist in town to judge the "Taste of Jefferson" contest later that day, I'd expected a sales pitch at some point during the weekend. And Jimmie Ruth Ford was it.
Stylishly dressed and coiffed, she bustled through the front door just as we sat down to the elegant meal. This small-town society matron with a gift for gab pulled up a chair and between bites of syrup-soaked French toast, began regaling me with stories of her hometown. Imagine a well-dressed version of Auntie Mame with an East Texas twang and tasteful jewelry and you've got her. The proprietor of a bed-and-breakfast reservations service, she described Jefferson's various home tours and the wide selection of meticulously restored historic properties around town. But what was riveting was Jimmie Ruth's account of the town's most notorious murder: Abe Rothschild, the black sheep of a wealthy Cincinnati family, married his pregnant young paramour, the bejeweled Bessie Moore, and brought her to Jefferson under an assumed name. When the couple quarreled while picnicking one afternoon, Rothschild supposedly shot his wife and took the last of her diamond jewelry to finance his gambling habit. The murder resulted in several trials over a period of seven years and though popularly believed to be guilty, Rothschild was never convicted. Surprisingly, the annual re-enactment of the trial is one of Jefferson's most beloved civic functions.
The sponsors of this event and many others, are a savvy bunch of hardworking Jefferson society dames who have mined the town's rich, colorful past to create a variety of successful business ventures. Jimmie Ruth Ford, Llawanda Golden and the sixty years of Jessie Allen Wise Garden Club members who came before them, have restored Jefferson's former economic prosperity by embracing the town's history -- mansions, murders, millionaires and all.
JEFFERSON'S PAST
In its mid-nineteenth century heyday, the Northeast Texas town of Jefferson was a bustling inland steamboat port that rivaled Galveston and New Orleans in commerce and sophistication. Beginning in 1845 and continuing for nearly forty years, steamboats laden with passengers and every conceivable item of merchandise or supply bound for Texas unloaded at the Jefferson dock on Big Cypress Bayou. On the return voyage, they carried beef and timber to ship out of New Orleans. Everyone came to Jefferson: The names of presidents and actors, riverboat gamblers and robber barons can be found on historic hotel registers. Commerce and tourism were the mainstays of a thriving economy in a city known nationwide for its luxurious hotel accommodations, fascinating entertainment, and shops that stocked the most up-to-date fashions.
Jefferson came by this largesse naturally, when a huge logjam on the Red River sometime in the late-eighteenth century caused water to back up into Cypress Valley, covering miles of forest and forming Caddo Lake. Settlers began moving into the area in 1835 to grow cotton, a crop that demanded a reliable trade route to New Orleans and on to England. A portion of the logjam dam was removed to make the river navigable through Twelvemile Bayou and into Caddo Lake. Further excavations to Big Cypress Bayou in 1844 made the emerging village of Jefferson the northernmost port for merchandise and supplies bound for the North and West. It grew to be a busy, active port city of more than 30,000 people, second only to the gulf port city of Galveston in size and glamour. Jefferson remained so until the logjam on the Red River was completely removed by the U.S. government in the 1870s, lowering the water level over a period of years until the bayou was no longer navigable.
By that time railroads were replacing steamboats anyway. Railroad baron Jay Gould attempted to purchase right of ways to bring his Texas & Pacific line through Jefferson. Locals were cool to his proposal and he left town in disgust, leaving an ominous prophecy in the Excelsior Hotel register that said "The end of Jefferson." With the Texas & Pacific skirting the city and the loss of both steamboat and railroad commerce, Jefferson's economy suffered.
"The Garden Club had the last laugh on old Jay Gould, though," Jimmie Ruth told me with a wink. "They found one of his personal luxury cars abandoned in a field and had it brought back here on a truck." The club refurbished the car and turned it into a unique museum whose proceeds helped finance the restoration of the Excelsior House, Jefferson's most famous inn. The fourteen-room hotel boasts a register signed not only by the infamous railroad mogul, but also by President Ulysses S. Grant and writer Oscar Wilde. The garden club purchased the Excelsior in 1961 when it was sold to satisfy creditors. At the time, a Dallas Morning News headline proclaimed, "Clubwomen Tackle Man-Size Job," and some folks described the project as simply a "hobby" for the garden club gals. Little did they know....
WHERE TO STAY
The garden club women did much of the work on the Excelsior House themselves, scraping paint, scrubbing floors, and refinishing furniture. According to a published club history, members and non-members were eligible to decorate each room which meant they would provide the "money, time, elbow grease, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and electricians" necessary to complete the project. The club also sponsored regular fundraisers such as luncheon buffets, garage sales, and game nights to supplement donations. They threw a linen shower to gather new bed and bath linens and sold coffee every day to finance the new kitchen equipment. The Excelsior of today is a rare jewel with lovely, antique-filled rooms and a bridal suite named for Bessie Moore, the victim of Jefferson's infamous honeymoon murder. Another beautifully restored lodging across the street from the Excelsior, the Jefferson Hotel, is reportedly home to the benevolent wandering spirits of several former visitors. Not exactly the X-Files, but interesting enough that guests who claim to have experienced ghostly visitations return to the same rooms year after year. Hotels, however, are far from the only choice. Jefferson is famous for the number and variety of its bed-and-breakfasts.
Historic preservation is a community-wide activity in Jefferson, for everybody from the garden club to the high-school-aged junior historians who bought and restored their own building with proceeds from their theatrical presentations. As a result, everything from authentic plantation houses to elegant Victorian mansions to Greek Revival cottages now welcome travelers. There are no less than 60 bed-and-breakfasts in town. The history of each of the houses has been carefully researched and they are decorated with charming period antiques. The many houses take turns appearing on the Candlelight Tour of Homes in December every year. Members of the garden club dress in period costumes and take turns acting as docents in the tour homes every year. "The club is very active in anything that has to do with preservation," Jimmie Ruth explained, while Llawanda Golden nodded in agreement. "It's not your ordinary garden club by any means. They assign you a certain number of volunteer hours every month and embarrass you in meetings if you don't do your share." More than five thousand guests view the homes on the Candelight Tour every year, promoting the businesses and raising money for Jefferson's ongoing historical preservation projects.
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