Red River Steamboat Landing Specie — Bowie County

According to Texarkana tradition, the name was derived from a steamboat known as the Texarkana that plied the Red River as early as 1860. Other accounts credit a "Texarkana Bitters" drink or surveyor Col. Gus Knobel's naming sign at the rail junction. Bowie County drains into the Red and Sulphur rivers. Early settlements included Preston Bend river trade, Warren, and Pilot Grove. Hunters and traders were active in the area by 1815; permanent settlement was underway by 1818 in adjacent Red River County. Steamboat-era folklore imagines landing specie and merchant strongboxes when Red River floods shifted landings or when railroads replaced river freight after 1874. Coordinates mark the Red River approach north of downtown Texarkana.