Site of Former Settlement of Richardson's Bluff
Evadale, Jasper County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Homesite of Benjamin Richardson (1775?-1848?), an 1830 de Zavala colony settler. With his sons, Richardson operated a ferry that was of great service, especially in 1836 Runaway Scrape, aiding civilians as they fled toward the U.S. in fear of Santa Anna. Place later was renamed Ford's Bluff, for family with millsite here in 1852. In 1894 Mannie Cox opened a local shingle mill that was sold in 1902 to Kirby Lumber Company. When Kirby built sawmill in 1904, the site was renamed in honor of Miss Eva Dale, a teacher at the Southeast Texas Male and Female College in Jasper. (1972)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Benjamin Richardson, a de Zavala colony settler who arrived around 1830, made his home on a bluff over the Neches and, with his sons, ran a ferry that proved a lifeline during the 1836 Runaway Scrape, when panicked civilians fled Santa Anna's advance toward the U.S. border. The place was later renamed Ford's Bluff for a milling family, and in 1904 the Kirby Lumber Company built a sawmill here, giving the site its final name, Evadale, in honor of a local schoolteacher.
Why it matters
The site layers three chapters of East Texas history: frontier river crossings, the flight of the Texas Revolution, and the lumber boom that remade the pineywoods.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Benjamin Richardson
- · Eva Dale
Related events
- · Runaway Scrape
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Harvey Houses of Silsbee
Silsbee, TX
Founded as a sawmill town in 1894, Silsbee became a Santa Fe Railroad stop in 1902, and within a few years travelers could dine and lodge at one of Fred Harvey's famous Harvey Houses. Stretching from Chicago to California along the Santa Fe lines, the Harvey Houses brought crisp linens, good food, and a touch of refinement to rough railroad towns. Silsbee's first Harvey hotel burned in 1906, but a rebuilt restaurant served the community until 1923.
Silsbee Ice Plant
Silsbee, TX
The Silsbee Ice, Light, and Power Company — absorbed by Gulf States Utilities in 1926 — flourished after moving into this brick building in 1930. A new rail spur of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe let the plant ship ice across the region, making it a major distributor in an age before home refrigeration was common. Designed by D. H. Paulson with Spanish Revival touches like tiled pent roofs, the plant ran until 1981.
Wiess Bluff
Evadale, TX
On the Neches River in the piney woods of Southeast Texas, Wiess Bluff marked the head of tidewater navigation — the farthest point riverboats could reach from the coast. Laid out as Grant's Bluff in 1840, it grew when Simon Wiess built wharves and warehouses to float local goods downriver, and boomed in the 1880s as lumber companies laid tram roads into the surrounding forest. When the best timber gave out after 1900 the population thinned, and the post office finally closed in 1908.
First Baptist Church of Buna
Buna, TX
Buna began in 1892 as a Beaumont Lumber Company logging camp, and when the timber gave out the workers and their families stayed on and needed a place to worship. Baptists met intermittently for decades, sharing space with Methodists in a Kirby Lumber Company building until they formally organized as a church in 1918 with about sixteen members. From a small 1921 sanctuary the congregation grew into First Baptist Church of Buna, a fixture of the community for more than a century.