HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

19th Century Business House

Jefferson, Marion County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Fine structure with fanlight transoms. Housed Kahan Saloon in city's river port era. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1966

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

This finely built structure, distinguished by its fanlight transoms, dates to Jefferson's heyday as a bustling inland river port, when steamboats connected the town to the wider world. In those boom years it housed the Kahan Saloon, one of the many businesses that thrived along the waterfront trade.

Why it matters

The building is a survivor of Jefferson's brief but brilliant era as one of Texas's busiest river ports, before the railroads and a changing waterway left such towns behind.

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