Have you visited downtown Texarkana lately?
There is a lot of activity going on, and it’s all good. The Grim Hotel has been restored to its 1950s and 1960s appearance, and the Miller County Courthouse has undergone remodeling. It remainsas I remembered it when my dad and I visited my grandfather, who served as a jailer in the fifties.
Numerous buildings have been renovated into museums, restaurants, lofts, and open-air venues.The Arts and Entertainment District reflects muchof the Twin Cities’ past.
As a Texarkana native, my heart swells with pride driving down Broad Street. Many structures can never be restored to their original state because of new buildings in their place, which is sad to me. I’m all for progress, but some things are better restored.
Eddy Arnold recorded the song “Texarkana Baby”in 1949. It was one of the first 45 RPM records issued by RCA. We don’t hear it as often today as we did in the fifties.
I can’t say I’m a ‘genuine’ Texarkana Baby because“My pappy came from Arkansas and my maw fromLouisiana.” But I am a real “Texarkana, Arkansas”native! Born and raised here!
My research for a book about the history of the 1950s in Texarkana benefited immensely from the Texarkana Museum’s digital city directories, which date back to the inception of the directories.
In the 50s, our little world solely comprised the four-state areas of Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. The most used mode of travel was the train from Union Station, located at the end of Stateline, with a huge waiting area.
I remember the interior was made of marble, and the ceiling was so high that it echoed when you talked. Because my dad worked for the Cotton Belt Railroad, we could ride for free.
I made my first solo train trip to College Station to spend a week with my brother at Texas A&M when I was 10 and rode the ‘milk train, stopping at every dairy farm to pick up milk. Shhh, do not tell my girls. I would not let them breathe by themselves until they were 16.
Jet airplanes and the internet have opened new horizons, and some Texarkana natives cannot wait to leave and find their dreams elsewhere.
Today, we are such a mobile society. With the Texarkana Regional Airport’s expansion, Dallas is now easily accessible by air, providing access to worldwide destinations.
Texarkana is unique in so many ways. We are a city with two city governments in two states, but share a water department and a post office, with different zip codes. We are the only city with a border city exemption from state income tax for Arkansas residents.
You can stand in one place and have one foot in Texas and one in Arkansas. When driving North on Stateline, you are in Arkansas; when driving South, you are in Texas.
Texarkana is the only small town featured in the new Elvis movie. It has also been the subject of the films The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Boggy Creek Monster, and Smokey And The Bandit, andhas been mentioned on numerous television shows.
For those who have stayed in Texarkana or moved here and love it, Texarkana really is “Twice AsNice.”
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