Granny's Neck, Texas, AKA Old Granny's Neck and Harper's Crossing. (original) (raw)
By Bob Bowman ("All Things Historical" Column)
Granny's Neck is one of the oddest names ever given to a piece of East Texas real estate. Also known as Old Granny's Neck and Harper's Crossing, the small community was six miles southeast of Cooper, where the Old Bonham-Jefferson Road crossed the Suphur River in Delta County.
The land was settled in 1846 when Brig DeSpain, his wife Narcissa and their three daughters arrived from Tennessee to claim land awarded to a relative, Randolph DeSpain, a Texas Revolutionary soldier who was killed with James W. Fannin, Jr., at the Goliad Massacre in 1836.
The DeSpain survey was situated on both sides of the Bonham-Jefferson Road, which was used in those days as a route for transporting cotton.
Soon after they put down their roots, the DeSpains built a bridge across the South Sulphur River on the highest ridge in the area.
The bridge was built of native oak and bois d'arc wood to withstand the heavy traffic of ox wagons and horse-drawn vehicles. Built high enough to escape flooding, the bridge made the road a popular trade route.
More settlers joined the DeSpains, including Mary (Granny) Sinclair, the matriarch of her family, who raised goats on a neck of land that jutted into the river.
The community was named for Granny Sinclair and, after the Civil War, it had a school, Granny's Neck School, with one teacher and thirty-two students. The school later moved to Pecan Grove.
Until cotton and corn became important crops, the South Sulphur ran clear. Afterward, eroded dirt from plowed fields muddied the river's waters and shortly after 1870, when Delta County was organized, the bridge was washed out by heavy rains and another bridge was built at a new crossing named for G.W. Harper, a toll keeper.
After the bridge was paid for and the toll booth was closed. Delta and Hopkins counties shared the maintenance costs of the bridge.
The bridge remained important to freight haulers during the 1920s and 1930s, but as agriculture became less important to Delta County, so did the road and residents began moving out of the Granny's Neck community.
Some maps still identified the community and crossing in the l960s, but by 1984 the road was no longer in use.
In 1970, the Delta County Historical Commission placed a Texas historical marker at the intersection of State Highways 154 and 19 to mark the site of Granny's Neck.
September 18, 2006 Column