Redwater Texas, Bowie County, A unique town story. (original) (raw)

East Texas is filled with towns bearing odd names, ranging from Dimple and Cuthand in Red River County to Pluck and Soda in Polk County--and with places like Yallo Busha and Slocum thrown in for good measure.

Just how these and other strangely-named communities got their names is a whole slice of East Texas history.

For example, take Redwater, located twelve miles southwest of Texarkana in southeastern Bowie County.

By itself, Redwater isn�t a terribly unusual name, but the story behind the name is a heck of a tale, especially when you throw in an agnostic, a colorful British-born postmaster, and the first set of female quadruplets born in the U.S.

In the mid-1870s, a small town grew up around a sawmill operated by two men named Daniels and Spence. who decided to name the community for agnostic Robert Ingersoll and established a post office in his honor in 1881.

But in 1886, the town started talking about founding a church and called in Rev. R.D. Fuller, pastor of Texarkana�s First Methodist Church, for help.

A Methodist church was organized and a few years later, the town held a revival with a hundred conversions.

With a church and an expanded religious faith, townspeople decided they didn�t want to live in a town named for a man who didn�t believe in God.

So they trashed Ingersoll, and adopted the name �Redwater� because the water in nearly all of the springs and shallow wells around the community had a reddish color.

They also mounted a campaign against liquor, closed down the town�s saloons and forced their owners to leave the community. That was in 1899 and since then, whiskey has not been sold in Redwater.

Then came E.T. Page, a British-born businessman who liked East Texas so well that he was often called �East Texas Page.� He soon became a tutor for children in the nearby community of Mooresville.

When a group of Texarkana financiers approached Page about establishing a bank in Redwater. Page agreed and, after the Texarkana financiers procrastinated, he established the Citizens Bank on his own in 1913.

An avid Democrat, Page also served as Redwater�s postmaster for several years during a Democratic administration in Washington. But when Republican Grover Cleveland became president, Page was on the verge of losing his postal job.

Page�s wife Nannie, however, saved the day.

She gave birth to female quadruplets--reportedly the first born in the U.S.

Learning of the history-making quads, President Cleveland decided that E.T. Page could remain a postmaster, regardless of his political leanings.

Redwater also found itself famous because of the quads. Every time a train stopped at the local depot, passengers wanted to see the famous little girls. Gifts poured in from all over the nation.

Meanwhile, E.T. Page, the rock-ribbed Texas Democrat, was also basking in the glory.and often referred to his daughters as �the children who kept a Democrat in office under a Republican administration.�