December 8, 1873

The town site that became Texarkana (Miller County) was established with the sale of lots at the place where the Cairo and Fulton Railroad tracks would meet the Texas and Pacific Railroad. The town’s name may have existed before the town, as some say that, as early as 1860, it was used by the steamboat Texarkana, which traveled the Red River. The most popular version of the town’s naming credits a railroad surveyor, Colonel Gus Knobel, who came to the state line between Arkansas and Texas, and, believing he was also near the Louisiana border, wrote “TEX-ARK-ANA” on a board and nailed it to a tree with the statement, “This is the name of a town which is to be built here.”