Marshall-Shreveport Stagecoach Road

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Marshall-Shreveport Stagecoach Road in Harrison County. Now settle in, because this road has a story worth hearing. Before the Civil War — we're talkin' the years 1861 to 1865 — this stage road was the main transportation artery between Marshall and Shreveport.

The main artery. Not one of several options, not a back way if the other roads were muddy. The main line.

And through Shreveport, it provided a link all the way to New Orleans, connecting this corner of East Texas to distant markets that were hungry for whatever Texas had to send. The road extended northeast from Marshall, running roughly parallel to what we now call State Highway 43, passing about two and a half miles north of the marker site. It merged with the route coming down from Jefferson, then turned southeast toward Waskom.

Picture that path in your mind — northeast, then a merge, then southeast — the road bending and reaching like it had somewhere important to be. And it did. Now here's the part that'll make you feel the road.

In some areas, the iron-rimmed wheels of those coaches and the constant pounding of horses' hooves wore the narrow roadbed down — down — as much as twelve feet below the surrounding terrain. Twelve feet. You could walk that road and have walls of earth rising on both sides of you.

That is not a road that was traveled lightly. Of course, in dry weather it was merely uncomfortable. In the rainy season?

The marker puts it plainly — travel was often impossible. Not difficult. Not slow.

Impossible. By 1850, regular stage service had been established, with three arrivals and three departures weekly out of Marshall. And the arrival of the stage was a major event.

When that driver blew his bugle — and you can almost hear it echoing down those earthen walls — townspeople rushed to meet the incoming coach. That bugle meant news, mail, faces from somewhere else, maybe a letter you'd been waiting on for weeks. By 1860, Marshall had several stagecoach lines and a whole network of roads spreading out from town.

One of those lines — the Marshall to Shreveport run itself — was operated by a plantation owner named William Bradfield and his son John. A family business, rolling back and forth between two cities on a road half-buried in the ground. Then the war came. 1861 to 1865, and the stage kept running.

Despite the shortage of drivers. Despite the shortage of horses. It kept running.

That detail sits quietly in the marker, but think about what it meant to keep a stage line operating through four years of war when the very things that make a stage line work — the men and the animals — were in short supply. After the war, though, the road's long reign started to fade. The Southern Pacific completed a rail line to Shreveport, and use of the stage road declined.

The iron wheel had moved on — from rims in the dirt to rails on ties — and a road that had once been beaten twelve feet into the earth by nothing but relentless use was left to the weeds and the weather. Some roads, they say, were too important to last.

What the marker says

Before the Civil War (1861-65), the stage road was the main transportation artery between Marshall and Shreveport, providing a link with New Orleans for distant markets. Extending northeast from Marshall, the stage road paralleled the later route of State Highway 43 and passed about 2.5 miles north of this site. Merging with the route from Jefferson, it turned southeast toward Waskom. In some areas, iron-rimmed wheels and horses' hooves trampled the narrow roadbed as much as 12 feet below the surrounding terrain. Travel over the dirt road was uncomfortable in dry weather and often impossible in rainy seasons. Regular stage service was established by 1850, with three arrivals and three departures weekly from Marshall. Arrival of the stage was a major event. At the sound of the driver's bugle, townspeople rushed to meet the incoming coach. By 1860 Marshall had several stagecoach lines and a network of roads. The Marshall to Shreveport line was operated by plantation owner William Bradfield and his son John. The stage continued to run during the Civil War, despite the shortage of drivers and horses. Use of the stage road declined after the war, when the Southern Pacific completed a rail line to Shreveport. (1979)