Pisgah Ridge

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker at Pisgah Ridge tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, every good story starts with the land, and this one is no different. About twelve miles south of Corsicana, right where Richland Creek and Pin Oak Creek come together, the Tehuacana Hills push up their northern edge into something worth noticing.

Locals call it The Ridge. Some call it Pizgy Ridge. The official name is Pisgah Ridge — named, the marker tells us, for the biblical Mount Pisgah — and for a good long while, that limestone outcropping stood at five hundred and sixty-one feet above sea level.

Stood. Past tense. Because somewhere in the 1950s, a landowner decided that peak was in the way and leveled it.

Just like that, the high point of Pisgah Ridge was a memory. The ridge itself is still there, still riddled with caves, but the soft limestone has done what soft limestone does — eroded most of them down to something considerably less dramatic than they once were. What the ridge never lost was its draw.

Two creeks nearby mean fish, mean mussels, mean water. Where there's water, there's game. And where there's game, there are people, and people have been coming to Pisgah Ridge for centuries.

By 1830, things along the ridge were already complicated. That year, Cherokees reportedly burned a village south of the ridge — a village that had been home to both Tonkawa and Tawakoni people. That's a hard fact sitting right there in the stone, and it deserves a moment of quiet before we move on.

Within several years of that, settlers of European descent began arriving. Around 1850, a stagecoach inn near Richland Crossing was up and running on the northern end of the ridge, serving travelers moving along the Springfield Road — a road that crossed right through Navarro County, right across the ridge itself. Pockets of settlers filled in around it, and four communities took shape along that limestone spine: Richland Crossing at the north end, then Mt.

Pisgah, then Mt. Nebo, and finally Rushing to the south. Now, here's where the story picks up a particular flavor.

As more settlers came in, the area developed a reputation — and not the wholesome kind. There was a feud between the Love and Anderson families. And then there was an association with a name that needs no introduction in Texas history: outlaw John Wesley Hardin.

The marker doesn't elaborate, and neither will I. But that name hanging over a ridge already known for lawlessness tells you something about the temperature of the place. Then the railroad came through Navarro County in the 1870s — and went right around Pisgah Ridge.

A new settlement called Richland rose up along the tracks, and it pulled residents away from those four communities like a slow tide going out. Richland Crossing, Mt. Pisgah, Mt.

Nebo, Rushing — they faded. Today, the ridge stands as what the marker calls a point of geological and historical interest. The caves are eroded.

The peak is gone. The communities are quiet. But the confluence of those two creeks is still there, the limestone is still there, and the story of everyone who came to that ridge — the ones who farmed it, feuded on it, traveled across it, and the ones who were there long before any of that — that story is still very much alive.

What the marker says

Pisgah Ridge, known locally as "The Ridge" or "Pizgy Ridge," is an outcropping that begins at the northern extremity of the Tehuacana Hills about 12 miles south of Corsicana near the confluence of Richland and Pin Oak creeks. The peak of the limestone ridge, named for the biblical Mount Pisgah, was recorded at the altitude of 561 feet above sea level, but a landowner in the 1950s leveled it, reducing its elevation. The ridge contains many caves, but because of the soft limestone, most are greatly eroded. The two area creeks provide a natural supply of fish and mussels, and that coupled with the presence of game attracted settlers for centuries. In 1830, Cherokees reportedly burned a village south of the ridge that had been occupied by both Tonkawa and Tawakoni tribes. Within several years, settlers of European descent began arriving. Around 1850, a stagecoach inn near Richland Crossing, on the northern end of the ridge, served travelers. The Springfield Road traversed Navarro County across the ridge, and in addition to the stagecoach inn, pockets of settlers created communities in the area. Of the four settlements that developed along the ridge, Richland Crossing was the northernmost, followed by Mt. Pisgah, Mt. Nebo and Rushing. As more settlers came to the area, it gained a reputation for lawlessness, in part because of a feud between the Love and Anderson families, as well as an association with outlaw John Wesley Hardin. The railroad bypassed the area in the 1870s, and the new settlement of Richland drew residents away from the early Pisgah Ridge communities. Today, the ridge is a point of geological and historical interest. (2006)