This information was copied from The Cass County Genealogical Society, 1975, Vol. II, No. 3, pg 16-19.

DEDICATION OF HISTORICAL MARKER MARKING POINT ON TRAMMEL'S TRACE
East of Hughes Springs
24 March 1968
Remarks of Gilbert A. Youngs

NOTE: I am going to add the people's first name to the ones in this article so that years later people will know of whom they were speaking of.

Judge (Tom) Cope, Mr. (Buck) Florence, Mr. (J.E.) Townley, Judge, (D.H.) Boon, Judge (Wayne) Brown, Mrs. (M.M.) McMitchael and Fellow Members of the Cass County Historical Society, ladies and gentlemen.

It gives me great pleasure, not only as a member of the Cass County Historical Society, and not only as your Highway District Engineer, but as a citizen of this area - - to be present today and to participate in this important event.

Since I have now been a resident of Cass County for more than 35 years, I feel I'm no longer a stranger here. Since, as a young engineer, I began a survey at this very spot about 34 years ago for the road which now runs south to Avinger, Lancaster, and Jefferson - - I feel I'm no stranger here in Hughes Springs. Many of you may remember that about that time we maintained an office in Hughes Springs over Harry Grainger's store.

Unquestionably, many of you have forgotten the old road, then so familiar to you, which was replaced when we constructed the new highway south of this point, just as you forgot the old road between the then edge of town near Harman's store, via the fire tower to Linden, when the road east of here to Linden was constructed about this same time. This is not unusual; as the old, having served its purpose, gives way to the new, we have a way of adopting the ago-old theory: "The King is dead; long live the King" or "Forget the old, hail to the new".

This is not necessarily an unhealthy attitude. We are glad to forget the wheezing, coughing, jerking old jalopies we periodically trade in on shiny new automobiles with that haunting characteristic smell a new car possesses. We are glad to forget the days of 12 cent labor and revel in the wages we receive nowadays. We might, however, look back with a little nostalgia at the day we were able to secure a good room and board for $22.00 a month or buy the best possible pair of shoes for 1/6th of what we have to pay today. Forgetting anything old is an acceptable practice unless that thing stood out in its time as worth of remembrance.

It is all right to forget roads which have been replaced by better ones if these roads replaced were a few of many such roads. It is only when man replaced a road which stood alone in its field as a transportation artery, one which opened up vast trade territory, on which , if you please, altered the course of history that man in turn should take steps to prevent posterity from forgetting this artery of civilization. It is for this purpose that we are gathered here today. Each person here should feel proud that he is here for this occasion.

This is a general election year, the election which comes around each year when the month of February has in it that extra leap-year day. Our minds will, for the most of the rest of the year, be quite occupied with listening to the antice of the avowed candidates and non-candidates for the office of President.

Let's look back in history to the general election held in this country 45 general elections ago. It was the year 1788 and really the first election ever held in this great country for the purpose of electing a President. There was no bickering between different parties, no dissension in a party - - only unanimity of opinion - - and one man was nominated and elected. He was George Washington.

In a new-formed village in Tennessee at this time, no such unanimity of opinion existed. One Nicholas Trammel, Sr., a scout and trader, had assisted somewhat earlier in founding the settlement which was then known as Nashborough - - now as Nashville. Its existence in the beautifully timbered mountains was bitterly contested by the Cherokee Indians who felt the Palefaces, in establishing their new country, were encroaching too deeply and too thoroughly into their beloved mountains. **Nicholas Trammel, Junior, who was destined to have a marked effect on the Southwest in general and this very spot upon which we stand in particular. He was eight years old the day George Washington was elected President.

**Nicholas, Senior, eventually lost his life in this continuing struggle with the Cherokees, but not before he sired a son.

After Nicholas, Senior, was killed defending Nashville from the Indians, Nicholas Trammel, Junior, moved with his grandparents and uncles across the Mississippi and down the Southwest Trail which originated in St. Louis and terminated at the Fulton Arkansas water route. Trammel's family had all been active in trail blazing and pioneered many frontiers in the westward expansion. The family is rumored also to have been active in contraband trading between the Northeast and Southwest. Nicholas' later life was ordained to be a hectic one; and his morals were indeed questionable; but we are interested in him only because of his ability as a trail blazer.

Young Trammel matured early and learned from his family the art of scouting. He was commissioned by the government to cut many trails in his early youth, which paralleled the youth of our country.

About the time of our disastrous war with England in 1812, Nicholas Trammel, Jr., began the trail now bearing his name which formed a connecting link between the Southwest Trail from St. Louis and the Camio Real (King's Highway). It ran from Fulton, Arkansas to Nacogdoches and was the first road to Texas from the Northeast.

Beginning at Fulton, Trammel's Trace ran southwesterly, crossing the State line north of Texarkana. Thence it crossed what is now the intersection of Farm Roads 1297 and 559 (Richmond Road), thence across US 82 in the west edge of Nash, then through Red Springs and North Red Water; across what is now the dam on Nettles Creek in the Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant, thence crossing present US 67 at its intersection with Farm Road 2149 at Clem; thence southwesterly across State Highway 8 at a point 1/2 miles south of Farm Road 2624; thence westerly across Sulphur River at the old Epperson Ferry site marked by the Texas Centennial Committee with a marker in 1936.

After entering Cass County, the Trace followed high ground between Whatley and Thomas Creek, went through the present cemetery 1 1/2 miles northeast of Bryans Mill, continued southwesterly to a point one mile southwest of the old Dalton Cemetery. This is where it joined the old Spanish Trace which went northwest across Stephenson Ferry (on Sulphur River 1 1/2 mile upstream from the present crossing of the US 67) and on to Pecan Point and Jonesboro.

From this junction point with Spanish Trace, Trammel's Trace went almost due south for 13 1/2 miles through some of the most beautiful pine and hardwood forests in the state to a crossing of Highways 11 and 49 east of Hughes Springs and passed approximately 1/4 mile due west of where we stand at this moment. It then followed roughly parallel to the present Highway 49 and about 1 to 1 1/2 miles west of it crossing Highway 155 at the southwest corner of Avinger, thence across Big Cypress west of Jefferson, southeast skirting to the east of Marshall thence southwesterly across the Sabine to Tatum, where it becomes the county line between Panola and Rusk Counties, to Pinehill and thence southeasterly to near Shiloh Cemetery beside State Highway 315; thence along 315 to Mr. Enterprise and US 259 to Kings Highway in Nacogdoches.

Trade in the west developed steadily over this Trace between 1815 and 1824. The Trace during this period was strictly for packhorses. In 1824 Andrew Davis and Nicholas Trammel cut the trail for wagons, and trade expanded rapidly.

The importance of this Trace to development of the southwest is incalculable. It opened the way into Texas for such men as Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, James Bowie, David Crockett, and others. It is indelibly and inseparably linked with Texas History.

A dozen years ago, a young high school girl in Texarkana, Miss Annabel Pagan, wrote an article for "The Junior Historian" entitled TRAMMEL'S TRACE. It is to her, through this article, and to my late friend Jim Dawson, a former prominent engineer in Texarkana (who mapped the Trace with great accuracy) that I am indebted for the information I have given you on this primitive and all-important traffic artery.

I should like to quote verbatim the admonition given to us in the last sentence of Miss Pagan's fine contribution to history:

"Before the last memory fades and while documentary evidence of the Trace's location is still available, this gateway to a new horizon should be marked forever by appropriate moments so that posterity may properly remember and appreciate this early Texas Trail."

It is with great feeling of appreciation to the responsible Historical Societies to note that Miss Pagan's plea has been and even now is being heeded.

In 1936 the Commission of Control for Texas Centennial Celebrations erected historical markers along this very historical Trammel Trace where it crossed U.S. 79 at the now county line between Panola and Rusk Counties, and at its crossing of Sulphur River at the Epperson's Ferry Crossing. One was placed also at the Stephenson's Ferry Crossing of Spanish Trace which branched off of Trammel's Trace southwest of Dalton.

In June 1956, at the request of the Bowie County and Cass County Historical Societies, the Texas Highway Department moved these two Ferry Markers to maintain the "Trace" location on the respective highways to which they were moved. The Historical Survey Committee of Bowie and Cass Counties, represented then by Mr. J.W. Dawson and Mr. Will Hornsey, are due a debt of gratitude for their efforts in preserving these markers.

In July 1965 the Texas Highway Department erected for the Bowie County Historical Survey Committee, at the request of Mrs. A.A. Forester, Chairman, a marker where Tramels Trace crossed the Texas-Arkansas line on US 59-71 about a mile north of the crossing of Interstate Highway 30.

And now the Cass County Historical Society on this occasion is marking the Trace for posterity by erecting this marker.

It is a credit to all officials of the Society, past and present, that such productive efforts have been made to preserve the location of this great transportation artery, and by the inscriptions placed on th4ese markers to call attention continually to succeeding generations of its importance in Texas and local history.

I am proud that you have permitted the Highway Department to play its small part in this great program.