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Historic Nacogdoches
NACOGDOCHES
By R. B. BLAKE
Illustrations by Roy Henderson, Charlotte Baker Montgomery, and Dr. George L. Crocket.
1This booklet is an enlarged and revisedreprint of two earlier booklets, one preparedby Mr. Blake and the Reverend George L.Crocket in 1936 as a part of the Celebrationof the Texas Centennial. The second bookletwas published in 1939 by the NacogdochesHistorical Society and dedicated tothe memory of Dr. Crocket, who, amongthe other labors of a singularly useful andbeneficient life, was an untiring studentof the history and traditions of East Texas.Since he was one of the earliest workersin the field, much material which wouldotherwise have been lost was preserved byDr. Crocket’s industry and enthusiasm.The demand for information concerning HistoricNacogdoches has been so great thatthe supply has been exhausted. Many copieshave been furnished historians, school children,historical societies and people generallyinterested in the rich, historical backgroundof this area. This third edition wasfinanced by the Nacogdoches Chamber ofCommerce and will be supplied free uponrequest.
Published By
NACOGDOCHES HISTORICAL SOCIETY
and the
NACOGDOCHES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Nacogdoches Speaks
BY KARLE WILSON BAKER
(By permission of the Southwest Press)
I was The Gateway. Here they came, and passed,
The homespun centaurs with their arms of steel
And taut heart-strings: wild wills, who thought to deal
Bare-handed with jade Fortune, tracked at last
Out of her silken lairs into the vast
Of a man’s world. They passed, but still I feel
The dint of hoof, the print of booted heel,
Like prick of spurs—the shadows that they cast.
I do not vaunt their valors, or their crimes:
I tell my secrets only to some lover,
Some taster of spilled wine and scattered musk.
But I have not forgotten; and, sometimes,
The things that I remember arise, and hover,
A sharper perfume in some April dusk.
Nacogdoches The Indian Town
For the beginnings of Nacogdoches we must go back to the shadowytimes when heroic figures march with majestic tread across the stage oftradition, obscured by the mists of centuries. Having no written languagewith which to record the glories of their race, the Tejas Indians recountedthe tales of their beginnings around their home fires, thus passing themdown from father to son through the long centuries before the coming ofthe Europeans.
Thus it is recounted that in the days of long ago an old Caddo chief