Historical Markers StoppingPoints.com Historical Markers, Sightseeing & Points of Interest Scenic Roads & Points of Interest
About Us | Photo Gallery | Free Widgets | Featured States | Search Site
Register or Edit LoginRegister
Home Texas Henderson County Trinidad The Trinity River
     

The Trinity River

  Texas Historical Markers
Trinidad, TX, USA

Latitude & Longitude: 32° 8' 48.23912000004", -96° 5' 42.19815999984"
 
    Texas State
Historical Marker
    Three main tributaries-- the West, Elm, and East forks-- feed the Trinity from headwaters in North Texas. Discovery of prehistoric Malakoff Man carved stone heads near this site in the 20th century revealed that humans inhabited the Trinity valley thousands of years ago. Indian villages dotted the river banks when European exploration began. French explorer robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle called this waterway the River of Canoes in 1687. Spaniard Alonso de Leon is credited with first using the name Trinity in 1690. The fertile Trinity floodplain drew Anglo-American settlers to this area during the . Buffalo, first Henderson County Seat, was founded a few miles upstream at a ferry crossing. Navigation of the Trinity has been proposed in a number of ambitious plans since the 1850s. Steamboats plied the river carrying cotton, cattle, and lumber to Galveston and other Gulf of Mexico ports until the 1870s. Arrival of the railroad ended the era of riverboat trade. Founded in 1881 on the St. Louis Southwestern Railroad, also known as the Cotton Belt, the town of Trinidad had a pump station to draw water for the boilers of steam locomotives. A ferry crossed the Trinity here until a bridge was erected in 1900.

This page last updated: 7/15/2008

The Trinity River Historical Marker Location Map, Trinidad, Texas