Texarkana

Nobody agrees who named it. The Handbook of Texas offers three accounts: a Red River steamboat called Texarkana, running by 1860; a Red Land, Louisiana, storekeeper's Texarkana Bitters; and Colonel Gus Knobel, a railroad surveyor, credited with coining it. State Line Avenue still divides two cities, each with its own mayor and council. The Handbook adds that a separate Texas post office ran from 1886 to 1892, until a postal order made the name Texarkana, Arkansas-Texas. The State Line Post Office and Federal Building of 1932-33 is the only U.S. post office in two states.

What the plaque says

Texarkana Founded when Texas & Pacific railroad platted townsite and held sale of lots on Dec. 8, 1873, to open regional shipping point. Strategically located on famed Indian trail from the Mississippi to Mexico, site had already been named (for its Texas-Arkansas-Louisiana trade area) by several persons-- a physician, a priest, a surveyor, a medicine show barker, a statesman, and others. City was incorporated in Texas on June 12, 1874; in Arkansas, Oct. 17, 1880. It advanced rapidly in business and social facilities. In a century, it has grown from 40 persons at townsite auction to over 52,000. (1973) Incise on back: Sponsored by Texarkana Chamber of Commerce Convention and Visitors Bureau, Bowie County Historical Survey Committee

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of Regional History — 0.5 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.
• Atlanta State Park — 18 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.

More markers nearby

• Scott Joplin — steps away
• World War I Memorial — 0.3 mi
• First Disciples of Christ in Texas — 0.3 mi
• The French in Texas — 0.3 mi