Water Rails & Oil - Historic Mid & South Jefferson County

❖
John S. Sparks, born in Tennessee in
1811, and his wife, Melinda (Jones)
born in Alabama, came to Texas in
1837 and settled on Pavell’s Island
located at the junction of the Sabine
and Neches Rivers. John worked at
the Pavell Brothers shingle mill. They
later moved near Taylor Bayou and
John established a much-needed ferry
crossing to Sabine Pass. Melinda and
John Sparks had eleven children, and,
because of their family and the
thriving ferry business, they purchased
160 acres on the north shore of Lake
Sabine. They built a home at this site
that was completed in 1856. When
crops failed they ‘lived off the land’
and the plentiful prairie chickens,
ducks, geese, and alligators.
COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF THE GULF COAST,
PORT ARTHUR, TEXAS.
City of the Pass on the banks of the inlet a little
more than two miles from the Gulf to Sabine
Lake, a natural reservoir that received the waters
of the Sabine and Neches rivers and various
bayous. Developers had grand plans for
numerous public buildings, churches,
businesses, and many private dwellings, but
they never materialized.
Near the same time, the Sabine City
Company, representing the investments of Sam
Houston, Philip A. Sublett, George W. Hockley,
John S. Roberts, Albert G. Kellogg, Niles F.
Smith, and Sidney Sherman—mostly men who
had served under Houston in the Battle of San
Jacinto—laid out a new settlement directly on
the pass from Lake Sabine to the Gulf in 1836.
Because of Sabine City’s proximity to the Gulf of
Mexico, developers hoped it would eventually
rival Galveston and other major ports along the
Gulf. By the Civil War, the city, now known as
Sabine Pass, had shown significant growth. It
was connected with rail service via the Eastern
Texas Railroad, and had a newspaper—the
Sabine Pass Times—and such industries as a
sawmill in addition to port activities.
The southern county city which ultimately
became an industrial giant had one of the most
modest beginnings. Promoter Almanzon Huston
dreamed of locating a new settlement where
Taylor Bayou entered Lake Sabine. Huston
purchased the site from Horatio M. Hanks in
October 1837, for a new community named
Aurora, but little development resulted from his
efforts. Later, John Sparks moved his family
from Tennessee to the area for a new start in
Texas. They arrived at Pavell’s Island, located at
the junction of Sabine and Neches rivers, where
the Pavell family operated a shingle mill. Sparks
worked for the Pavell’s making cypress shingles
until he decided to establish a ferry across
Taylor Bayou to take advantage of increasing
traffic between Beaumont and the southernmost
part of the county.
Sparks’ success in the ferry business enabled
him to purchase 160 acres from Allen and Nancy
Franklin in 1853. Sparks began construction of a
house for his family near the planned but as yet
undeveloped Aurora, but a fire soon destroyed it.
Sparks tried again in 1855, and this time
succeeded. In 1859 Sparks’ older brother
Solomon and his family joined him in Texas, and
as his children grew up and married, they also
built homes near his original settlement. The
Eastern Texas Railroad, constructed in 1861,
passed near Spark’s settlement, and they named
the area Aurora in honor of Almanzon Houston’s
original plan. During the Civil War workers
removed the steel tracks, and other stresses of
10 ✦ WATER, RAILS & OIL