New Boston

The railroad built its line about four miles north of Boston in the summer of 1876, and Boston's merchants feared decline. A local surveyor, J. H. Smelser, negotiated for a depot, and in September lots went on sale on 100 acres the railroad had bought. Most of those behind the town came from Boston, hence the name. By 1884 it had 400 residents, mills, gins and the New Boston Herald. A new county courthouse was dedicated here on March 4, 1986, though Boston stayed the official seat, and an arsonist burned the abandoned 1889 courthouse in 1987.

What the plaque says

New Boston Established as shipping point when Texas & Pacific Railroad was built across Bowie County in 1870s, drawing business from original town of Boston (4 mi. S). New Boston townsite was platted in 1876; its post office opened Jan. 26, 1877, with L. C. DeMorse as postmaster. Baptists organized church here in 1880; Methodists, 1883; Church of Christ, 1943. The first building designed as a school was erected in 1886. New Boston men who have served in the Texas Legislature: Blair McGee (1889); Norman L. Dalby (1909-1910); R. M. Hubbard (1929, 1931), and Joseph White, Jr. (1939). (1971) Incise on back: Marker Sponsors: Veterans of World War I, Bowie County Barracks #1657, Their Auxiliary, and The Bowie County Historical Survey Committee

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Atlanta State Park — 19 mi
  A shoreline park on Wright Patman Lake, leased from the Army in 1954, where Caddo ancestors farmed the Sulphur River and wagon traces such as the Bobo Ferry trace still cross the woods.
• Museum of Regional History — 22 mi
  Texarkana's oldest museum, in an 1879 brick building on State Line Avenue, with Caddo pottery, one of Scott Joplin's pianos and a research library of city directories and photographs.

More markers nearby

• Bowie County — 1.2 mi
• Old Boston — 3.8 mi
• Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church — 5.7 mi
• Arkadelphia Rosenwald School — 6.2 mi