U.S. Route 59 in Texas
U. S. Highway 59 in the U. S. state of Texas is named the Lloyd Bentsen Highway, after Lloyd Bentsen, former U. S. senator from Texas. In northern Houston, US 59, co-signed with Interstate 69, is the Eastex Freeway. To the south, co-signed with I-69, it is the Southwest Freeway; the stretch of the Southwest Freeway just west of The Loop was one of the busiest freeways in North America, with a peak AADT of 371,000 in 1998. US 59 straddles the border between Texas and Arkansas north of I-30 near Texarkana, with the east side of the highway on the Arkansas side and the west side of the highway on the Texas side. In the past, both highways remained on the border past I-30 as State Line Avenue to downtown Texarkana. Nearly 90 percent of this route is designated to become part of I-69 in the future. 75-mile-per-hour speed limits are allowed on US 59 in Duval County and portions of northern Polk County. The total length of the southernmost segment of US 59 that passes through Texas and terminates at the Mexico–US border is 615 miles.
The US 96 designation was applied in 1926 from Rosenberg, near Houston, to Pharr in the Rio Grande valley. This diagonal route, south of U. S. 90, did not violate the convention of numbers for east–west routes. The highway's east–west nature was boosted in 1934 when US 96 was rerouted from Alice to Laredo. US 59 begins at the Mexico–US border with Loop 20 on the World Trade International Bridge over the Rio Grande in Laredo; the portion of US 59, co-signed with Loop 20 is named the Bob Bullock Loop. At under 2 miles, the two highways run together concurrent with I-69W from the Mexico–US border until I-35 in Laredo, where I-69W temporarily ends. US 59 and Loop 20 continue to run together until just south of Lake Casa Blanca, where Loop 20 heads south to Mangana-Hein Road and US 59 heads towards Freer. In Duval County, the speed limit on US 59 is 75 miles per hour, the highest speed limit on the highway. US 59 shares a short congruency with SH 44 around Freer. From Freer, US 59 passes through the southeastern part of McMullen County, but does not intersect any highways.
The highway continues northeast, intersecting US 281 in George West, before intersecting I-37 about 55 miles north of Corpus Christi. Between Laredo and Interstate 37, US 59 passes through ranching sites. From I-37, US 59 heads northeast passing through Beeville. US 59 bypasses Victoria to the south, becomes a divided highway, has a series of interchanges, until it becomes a freeway south of Houston in Rosenberg and resumes the designation of I-69. Between Houston and Victoria, US 59 passes through Edna, Ganado, El Campo, Wharton. US 59 intersects many major Texas highways in Houston, including I-10 and I-45. Leaving Houston, US 59 intersects Beltway 8 again on the northside of town, passing by Bush Intercontinental Airport and heads into Humble. Between Houston and Livingston, most of US 59 is a limited-access freeway but the I-69 designation temporarily ends at the Montgomery-Liberty county line. US 59 bypasses the towns of Cleveland and Livingston. 46 miles north of Livingston, US 59 bypasses Lufkin, where it overlaps US 69.
10 miles north of Lufkin, US 59 bypasses Nacogdoches and heads in an entirely east-west direction. Drivers wishing to stay on US 59 must turn left in Tenaha, where the highway intersects US 96 and ends its overlap with US 84. US 59 passes through Carthage before intersecting I-20 south of Marshall. US 59 intersects US 80 in Marshall. US 59 passes through Jefferson, 15 miles west of Caddo Lake. US 59 passes through the towns of Atlanta before arriving in Bowie County. US 59 intersects SH 93 south of the old highway through the city. Shortly after, I-369 designation with US 59 when the freeway intersects Spur 151, where US 59 becomes a freeway on the westside of the city. Before US 59 intersects I-30, overlaps I-30 until exit 223B, at the state line, I-369 designation ends. After leaving I-30, US 59 joins US 71, where both highways run on the state line between Texas and Arkansas, where both highways continue north towards DeQueen, Arkansas. US 59 is in the process of being upgraded between Laredo & Victoria, to become I-69W.
Segments of I-69 are designated. I-69W runs between Mexico and I-35. I-69 runs through the Houston Metro, a segment of I-369 exists on the west side of Texarkana; the entire I-69 project in Texas does not have a completion date
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is used in Canada, Romania and the United States. County towns have a similar function in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, in Jamaica. In most of the United States, counties are the political subdivisions of a state; the city, town, or populated place that houses county government is known as the seat of its respective county. The county legislature, county courthouse, sheriff's department headquarters, hall of records and correctional facility are located in the county seat though some functions may be located or conducted in other parts of the county if it is geographically large. A county seat is but not always, an incorporated municipality; the exceptions include the county seats of counties that have no incorporated municipalities within their borders, such as Arlington County, Virginia. Ellicott City, the county seat of Howard County, is the largest unincorporated county seat in the United States, followed by Towson, the county seat of Baltimore County, Maryland.
Some county seats may not be incorporated in their own right, but are located within incorporated municipalities. For example, Cape May Court House, New Jersey, though unincorporated, is a section of Middle Township, an incorporated municipality. In some of the colonial states, county seats include or included "Court House" as part of their name. In the Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the term "shire town" is used in place of county seat. County seats in Taiwan are the administrative centers of the counties. There are 13 county seats in Taiwan, which are in the forms of county-administered city, urban township or rural township. Most counties have only one county seat. However, some counties in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont have two or more county seats located on opposite sides of the county. An example is Harrison County, which lists both Biloxi and Gulfport as county seats; the practice of multiple county seat towns dates from the days.
There have been few efforts to eliminate the two-seat arrangement, since a county seat is a source of pride for the towns involved. There are 36 counties with multiple county seats in 11 states: Coffee County, Alabama St. Clair County, Alabama Arkansas County, Arkansas Carroll County, Arkansas Clay County, Arkansas Craighead County, Arkansas Franklin County, Arkansas Logan County, Arkansas Mississippi County, Arkansas Prairie County, Arkansas Sebastian County, Arkansas Yell County, Arkansas Columbia County, Georgia Lee County, Iowa Campbell County, Kentucky Kenton County, Kentucky Essex County, Massachusetts Middlesex County, Massachusetts Plymouth County, Massachusetts Bolivar County, Mississippi Carroll County, Mississippi Chickasaw County, Mississippi Harrison County, Mississippi Hinds County, Mississippi Jasper County, Mississippi Jones County, Mississippi Panola County, Mississippi Tallahatchie County, Mississippi Yalobusha County, Mississippi Jackson County, Missouri Hillsborough County, New Hampshire Seneca County, New York Bennington County, Vermont In New England, the town, not the county, is the primary division of local government.
Counties in this region have served as dividing lines for the states' judicial systems. Connecticut and Rhode Island have no county level of thus no county seats. In Vermont and Maine the county seats are designated shire towns. County government consists only of a Superior Court and Sheriff, both located in the respective shire town. Bennington County has two shire towns. In Massachusetts, most government functions which would otherwise be performed by county governments in other states are performed by town or city governments; as such, Massachusetts has dissolved many of its county governments, the state government now operates the registries of deeds and sheriff's offices in those counties. In Virginia, a county seat may be an independent city surrounded by, but not part of, the county of which it is the administrative center. Two counties in South Dakota have their county seat and government services centered in a neighboring county, their county-level services are provided by Fall River Tripp County, respectively.
In Louisiana, divided into parishes rather than counties, county seats are referred to as parish seats. Alaska is divided into boroughs rather than counties; the Unorganized Borough, which covers 49 % of Alaska's area, has equivalent. The state with the most counties is Texas, with 254, the state with the fewest counties is Delaware, with 3. County seat war Administrative center County town, administrative centres in Ireland and the UK Chef-lieu, administrative centres in Algeria, Luxembourg, France and Tunisia Municipality, equivalent to county in many c
Harris County, Texas
Harris County is a county located in the U. S. state of Texas, located in the southeastern part of the state near Galveston Bay. As of the 2010 Census, the population was 4,092,459, making it the most populous county in Texas and the third most populous county in the United States, its county seat is the largest city in Texas and fourth largest city in the United States. The county was founded in 1836 and organized in 1837, it is named for John Richardson Harris, who founded the town of Harrisburg on Buffalo Bayou in 1826. According to a July 2017 Census estimate, Harris County's population had grown to 4,652,980, comprising over 16 percent of Texas's population. Harris County is included in the nine-county Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan statistical area, the fifth most populous metropolitan area in the United States. Human remains date habitation to about 4,000 BCE. Other evidence of humans in the area dates from about 1400 BCE, 1 CE, in the first millenium; the region became uninhabited from 1 AD until European contact.
On the other hand, little European activity predates 1821. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca may have visited the area in 1529. French traders recorded passing through in the 18th century. Spaniards attempted to establish a fort in the area around the same time, but did not persist for long; the first recorded European settlers in Harris County arrived in 1822. Their schooner ran aground on the Red Fish Bar; some of those passengers traveled further up the bay system, but it is not known whether they settled up Buffalo Bayou or the San Jacinto River. One of these passengers, a Mr. Ryder, settled at what is now known as Texas. In 1822, John Iiams settled his family at Cedar Point after sailing from Berwick’s Bay, Louisiana. Dr. Johnson Hunter arrived just after Iiams, he wrecked his boat near Galveston. He was a grantee of land there. Nathaniel Lynch operated a ferry. In 1824, the land empresario, Stephen F. Austin convened at the house of William Scott for the purpose of conveying titles for Mexican headrights.
He was joined by the land commissioner, Baron von Bastrop, Austin’s secretary, Samuel May Williams. About thirty families gained legal titles to land in what would be known as Harris County. A few immigrants settled on Buffalo Bayou in these early years, including Moses Callahan, Ezekial Thomas, the Vince brothers. Nicolas Clopper arrived in the Galveston Bay area from Ohio in the 1820s, he attempted to develop Buffalo Bayou as a trading conduit for the Brazos River valley. He acquired land at Morgan’s Point in 1826. John Richardson Harris, for whom the county was named, arrived in 1824. Harris had moved his family to Sainte Genevieve, Missouri Territory, where they had been residing until the early 1820s. Harris was granted a league of land at Buffalo Bayou, he platted the town of Harrisburg in 1826, while he established a trading post and a grist mill there. He ran boats transporting goods between New Orleans and Harrisburg until his death in the fall of 1829; the First Congress of the Republic of Texas established Harrisburg County on December 22, 1836.
The original county boundaries included Galveston Island, but were redrawn to its current configuration in May 1838. The area has had a number of severe weather events, such as: 1900 Galveston Hurricane Hurricane Carla Hurricane Alicia Tropical Storm Allison Hurricane Rita Tropical Storm Erin Hurricane Ike Hurricane Harvey According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,777 square miles, of which 1,703 square miles is land and 74 square miles is covered by water. Both its total area and land area are larger than the state of Rhode Island. Montgomery County Liberty County Chambers County Galveston County Brazoria County Fort Bend County Waller County As of the 2015 Texas Population Estimate Program, the population of the county was 4,530,268, non-Hispanic whites 1,323,437. Black Americans 817,096. Other non-Hispanic 395,206. Hispanics and Latinos 1,994,529; as of the 2010 Census, the population of the county was 4,092,459, White Americans made up 56.6% of Harris County's population.
Black Americans made up 25.9% of the population. Native Americans made up 0.7% of Harris County's population. Asian Americans made up 6.2% of the population. Pacific Islander Americans made up just 0.1% of the population. Individuals from other races made up 14.3% of the population. Hispanics and Latinos made up 40.8% of Harris County's population. As of the 2010 census, there were about 6.2 same-sex couples per 1,000 households in the county. As of the census of 2000, 3,400,578 people, 1,205,516 households, 834,217 families resided in the county, making it the largest county by population in Texas; the population density was 1,967 people per square mile. The 1,298,130 housing units averaged 751 per square mile; the racial makeup of the county was 58.7% White, 18.5% Black or African American, 0.5% Native American, 5.1% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 14.2% from other races, 3.0% from two or more races. About 32.9% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. About 63.8 % spoke only English at home, while 28.8 % spoke 1.6 % Vietnamese.
In 2000, o
Sharecropping
Sharecropping is a form of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range of different situations and types of agreements that have used a form of the system; some are governed by tradition, others by law. Legal contract systems such as the Italian mezzadria, the French métayage, the Spanish mediero, the Slavic połowcy,издoльщина or the Islamic system of muqasat, occur widely. Sharecropping has costs for both the owners and the tenant. Everyone encourages the cropper to remain on the land. At the same time, since the cropper pays in shares of his harvest and croppers share the risks of harvests being large or small and of prices being high or low; because tenants benefit from larger harvests, they have an incentive to work harder and invest in better methods than in a slave plantation system. However, by dividing the working force into many individual workers, large farms no longer benefit from economies of scale.
On the whole, sharecropping was not as economically efficient as the gang agriculture of slave plantations. In the U. S. "tenant" farmers own their own mules and equipment, "sharecroppers" do not, thus sharecroppers are poorer and of lower status. Sharecropping occurred extensively in Scotland and colonial Africa, came into wide use in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era; the South had been devastated by war – planters had ample land but little money for wages or taxes. At the same time, most of the former slaves had labor but no money and no land – they rejected the kind of gang labor that typified slavery. A solution was the sharecropping system focused on cotton, the only crop that could generate cash for the croppers, landowners and the tax collector. Poor white farmers, who had done little cotton farming, needed cash as well and became sharecroppers. Jeffery Paige made a distinction between centralized sharecropping found on cotton plantations and the decentralized sharecropping with other crops.
The former is characterized by long lasting tenure. Tenants are tied to the landlord through the plantation store, their work is supervised as slave plantations were. This form of tenure tends to be replaced by wage slavery. Decentralized sharecropping involves no role for the landlord: plots are scattered, peasants manage their own labor and the landowners do not manufacture the crops. Leases are short which leads to peasant radicalism; this form of tenure becomes more common. Use of the sharecropper system has been identified in England, it is still used in many rural poor areas of the world today, notably in India. Although there is a perception that sharecropping was exploitative, "evidence from around the world suggests that sharecropping is a way for differently endowed enterprises to pool resources to mutual benefit, overcoming credit restraints and helping to manage risk." According to Dr. Hunter, "a few acres to the cottage would make the labourers too independent."It can have more than a passing similarity to serfdom or indenture where associated with large debts at a plantation store that ties down the workers and their family to the land.
It has therefore been seen as an issue of land reform in contexts such as the Mexican Revolution. However, Nyambara states that Eurocentric historiographical devices such as'feudalism' or'slavery' qualified by weak prefixes like'semi-' or'quasi-' are not helpful in understanding the antecedents and functions of sharecropping in Africa. Sharecropping agreements can, however, be made as a form of tenant farming or sharefarming that has a variable rental payment, paid in arrears. There are three different types of contracts. Workers can keep the whole crop. Workers keep some of the crop. No money changes hands but the land owner each keep a share of the crop; the advantages of sharecropping in other situations include enabling access for women to arable land where ownership rights are vested only in men. It has been pointed out. However, many outside factors make it efficient. One factor is slave emancipation: sharecropping provided the freed slaves of the US, Brazil and the late Roman Empire with land access.
It is efficient as a way of escaping inflation, hence its rise in 16th-century France and Italy. It gave sharecroppers a vested interest in the land, incentivizing hard work and care. However, American plantation were wary of this interest, as they felt that would lead to African Americans demanding rights of partnership. Many black laborers denied the unilateral authority that landowners hoped to achieve, further complicating relations between landowners and sharecroppers. Landlords opt for sharecropping to avoid the administrative costs and shirking that occurs on plantations and haciendas, it is preferred to cash tenancy because cash tenants take all the risks, any harvest failure will hurt them and not the landlord. Therefore, they tend to demand lower rents than sharecroppers; the practice was harmful to tenants with many cases of high interest rates, unpredictable harvests, unscrupulous landlords and merchants keeping tenant farm families indebted. The debt was compounded year on year leaving the cropper vulnerable to intimidation and shortchanging.
It appeared to be inevitable, with no serious altern
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival, commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, it is preceded by the season of Advent or the Nativity Fast and initiates the season of Christmastide, which in the West lasts twelve days and culminates on Twelfth Night. Christmas Day is a public holiday in many of the world's nations, is celebrated religiously by a majority of Christians, as well as culturally by many non-Christians, forms an integral part of the holiday season centered around it; the traditional Christmas narrative, the Nativity of Jesus, delineated in the New Testament says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in accordance with messianic prophecies. When Joseph and Mary arrived in the city, the inn had no room and so they were offered a stable where the Christ Child was soon born, with angels proclaiming this news to shepherds who further disseminated the information.
Although the month and date of Jesus' birth are unknown, the church in the early fourth century fixed the date as December 25. This corresponds to the date of the solstice on the Roman calendar. Most Christians celebrate on December 25 in the Gregorian calendar, adopted universally in the civil calendars used in countries throughout the world. However, some Eastern Christian Churches celebrate Christmas on December 25 of the older Julian calendar, which corresponds to a January date in the Gregorian calendar. For Christians, the belief that God came into the world in the form of man to atone for the sins of humanity, rather than the exact birth date, is considered to be the primary purpose in celebrating Christmas; the celebratory customs associated in various countries with Christmas have a mix of pre-Christian and secular themes and origins. Popular modern customs of the holiday include gift giving, completing an Advent calendar or Advent wreath, Christmas music and caroling, lighting a Christingle, viewing a Nativity play, an exchange of Christmas cards, church services, a special meal, pulling Christmas crackers and the display of various Christmas decorations, including Christmas trees, Christmas lights, nativity scenes, wreaths and holly.
In addition, several related and interchangeable figures, known as Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Christkind, are associated with bringing gifts to children during the Christmas season and have their own body of traditions and lore. Because gift-giving and many other aspects of the Christmas festival involve heightened economic activity, the holiday has become a significant event and a key sales period for retailers and businesses; the economic impact of Christmas has grown over the past few centuries in many regions of the world. "Christmas" is a shortened form of "Christ's mass". The word is recorded as Crīstesmæsse in 1038 and Cristes-messe in 1131. Crīst is from Greek Khrīstos, a translation of Hebrew Māšîaḥ, "Messiah", meaning "anointed"; the form Christenmas was historically used, but is now considered archaic and dialectal. Xmas is an abbreviation of Christmas found in print, based on the initial letter chi in Greek Khrīstos, "Christ", though numerous style guides discourage its use.
In addition to "Christmas", the holiday has been known by various other names throughout its history. The Anglo-Saxons referred to the feast as "midwinter", or, more as Nātiuiteð. "Nativity", meaning "birth", is from Latin nātīvitās. In Old English, Gēola referred to the period corresponding to December and January, equated with Christian Christmas. "Noel" entered English in the late 14th century and is from the Old French noël or naël, itself from the Latin nātālis meaning "birth". The gospels of Luke and Matthew describe Jesus as being born in Bethlehem to the Virgin Mary. In Luke and Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census, Jesus is born there and laid in a manger. Angels proclaimed him a savior for all people, shepherds came to adore him. Matthew adds that the magi follow a star to Bethlehem to bring gifts to Jesus, born the king of the Jews. King Herod orders the massacre of all the boys less than two years old in Bethlehem, but the family flees to Egypt and returns to Nazareth.
The nativity stories recounted in Matthew and Luke prompted early Christian writers to suggest various dates for the anniversary. Although no date is indicated in the gospels, early Christians connected Jesus to the Sun through the use of such phrases as "Sun of righteousness." The Romans marked the winter solstice on December 25. The first recorded Christmas celebration was in Rome on December 25, 336. Christmas played a role in the Arian controversy of the fourth century. After this controversy was played out, the prominence of the holiday declined; the feast regained prominence after 800. Associating it with drunkenness and other misbehavior, the Puritans banned Christmas during the Reformation, it remained disreputable. In the early 19th century, Christmas was reconceived by Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, other authors as a holiday emphasizing family, kind-heartedness, gift-giving, Santa Claus. Christmas does not appear on th
Sabine River (Texas–Louisiana)
The Sabine River is a river, 510 miles long, in the Southern U. S. states of Louisiana. In its lower course, it forms part of the boundary between the two states and empties into Sabine Lake, an estuary of the Gulf of Mexico. Over the first half of the 19th century, the river formed part of the Spanish–American, Mexican–American, Texan–American international boundaries; the upper reaches of the river flow through the prairie country of northeast Texas. Along much of its lower reaches, it flows through the pine forests along the Texas–Louisiana border, the bayou country near the Gulf Coast; the river drains an area of 9,756 square miles, of which 7,426 square miles are in Texas and 2,330 square miles in Louisiana. It flows through an area of abundant rainfall and discharges the largest volume of any river in Texas; the name Sabine comes from the Spanish word for cypress, in reference to the extensive growth of bald cypresses along the lower river. The river flows through an important petroleum-producing region, the lower river near the Gulf is among the most industrialized areas of the southeastern United States.
The river was described as the dividing line between the Old South and the New Southwest. The Sabine rises in northeast Texas by the union of three branches: the Cowleech Fork, Caddo Fork, South Fork; the Cowleech Fork flows southeast for 49.2 miles. The Caddo Fork, shown as "Caddo Creek" on federal maps, rises in two tributary forks, the East Caddo Fork and the West Caddo Fork, in northwestern Hunt County; the South Fork rises in the southwestern corner of Hunt County and flows east for 28.3 miles, joining the Caddo Fork and Cowleech Fork in southeastern Hunt County. The confluence of the forks is now submerged in the Lake Tawakoni reservoir; the combined river flows southeast across northeast Texas and is joined by a fourth branch, Lake Fork Creek, 70.0 miles downstream from the reservoir. In northeast Texas, the river flows past Mineola, Big Sandy, Longview, the largest city on the river, to southwest of Shreveport at the 32nd parallel north, where it establishes the Texas-Louisiana boundary.
It flows south. It is impounded 10 miles west of Leesville, Louisiana, to form the 70-mile-long Toledo Bend Reservoir, with the Sabine National Forest along its western bank. South of the reservoir, it passes through the bayou country, surrounded by wetlands, as well as widespread industrial areas near the Gulf Coast. 10 miles south of Orange, it meets the Neches River from the west to form the 17-mile-long and 7-mile-wide Sabine Lake, which drains through Sabine Pass to the Gulf of Mexico. The city of Port Arthur, sits along the western shore of Sabine Lake Archeological evidence indicates the valley of the river has been inhabited for as long as 12,000 years by indigenous peoples. Starting in the eighth century, the Caddo inhabited the area, building extensive earthwork mounds in complexes expressing their cosmology; the Caddo culture flourished until the late 13th century. Descendants of the Caddo were living along the river when the first European explorers arrived in the 16th century; the river was named in 1716 by Spanish explorer Domingo Ramón, appeared as Río de Sabinas on a 1721 map.
The river was used by French traders, at various times, the river was claimed by both Spain and France. After the acquisition by Spain of the French territory of Louisiana in 1763, following France's defeat by Great Britain in the Seven Years' War, the capital of the Spanish province of Texas was established on the east side of the river, near present-day Robeline, Louisiana. After acquiring the French territory west of the Mississippi River in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, the United States started to exert control in this area, it was at war with Native Americans in Louisiana along the Sabine River from 1836 to 1837, in the period when it was trying to remove the Indians to Indian Territory from the Southeast. The Sabine River was too deep to ford, proved to be navigable. Early travelers and settlers would have to swim the river on horseback and cattle would have to be driven into the river to swim across. Ferries were put into service. By the 1840s, steamboats were travelling from Logansport to Sabine Lake.
Recorded ferry use began 1794, when Louis Chabinan, his wife Margarite LaFleur, their four children settled on the east bank of the Sabine River on land purchased from Vicinte Michele. Chabinan built a ferry landing on the river called Paso del Chaland. Louisiana State Highway 6 and Texas State Highway 21 now meet near here, at the site of the present-day Pendleton Bridge. In 1796, Chabinan was drowned after falling into the Sabine. Michel Crow married his widow and ran the ferry, until he sold it to James Gaines circa 1819; this ferry was in service until 1937, when it was replaced by the Pendleton Bridge, built during the Great Depression. Crow operated a ferry he had started upriver, a 120-foot crossing started in 1796, it linked what became known as Carter's Ferry Road, now Texas FM 276. Carter's ferry was 15 miles from Many, Louisiana. Crow sold the ferry to Carter. Farther north, just above Bayou Lanan, was Williamson Ferry. Other ferries on the Sabine River: Burr's ferry Hadden's ferry Ballew's ferry Sabinetown ferry Gaines Ferry: Carter's ferry: (Located SSE of La 191 after crossing hwy 1215.
Interstate 20
U.S. Highway 59
Interstate 369 is currently under construction and will follow the current route of U.S. 59 in most places.
U.S. Highway 80
State Highway 43
State Highway 49
State Highway 154
Farm to Market Road 134
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Media related to Harrison County, Texas at Wikimedia Commons
Harrison County, Texas
