Historic Palestine

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Top, left: Cotton was king in East
Texas and Magnolia “reigned queen of
the river” (Avera) as a major port
along the Trinity.
COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM FOR EAST
TEXAS CULTURE.
Top, right: The steamboat A. S.
Ruthven was both a passenger and
cargo ship that arrived on the Trinity
in 1860 and was often seen in ports at
Parker’s Bluff and Magnolia. It had a
capacity for 900 bales of cotton and
made its final journey from Galveston
into Anderson County in 1872. It
later sunk in the Trinity River at
Parker’s Bluff. The ship’s anchor was
retrieved fifty year later and now
stands as a memorial at Spring Street
near downtown Palestine.
PHOTO BY RUTH MOORE.
Middle: A steamer appears
around a bend in the Trinity River
near Magnolia in the late
nineteenth century.
COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM FOR EAST
TEXAS CULTURE.
existence. And that’s pretty far back, for I crossed
Bonner’s Ferry first when I was 10 years old.
They charged from 50 cents to $1.50 for a twohorse
wagon, the price varying with the stage of
the river. And at these ferries were landed boats
from Galveston, bringing groceries, such as flour,
salt, sugar and coffee and whiskey…Magnolia
was the principal cotton shipping point…when
the river was too low for boat traffic the cotton
was hauled overland to Houston or Galveston
with four yokes of oxen drawing each wagon. It
took six weeks to make the trip.”
Trains replaced riverboats as the preferred
mode of transportation from the late 1870’s and
into the 1880s and small port communities
such as Old Magnolia soon declined throughout
the state.
Bottom: An historical marker is all
that remains near the site of
Magnolia. Historian Carl Avera wrote
of the place, “The river runs swiftly
and hums its quiet tune as it rushes
past Magnolia to Galveston. The only
thing afloat is a fallen branch of an
ancient tree.”
PHOTO BY JULIA DABNEY.
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