When the first white settlers came to this locality the Indians told them that the lake was formed overnight in 1812 by some kind of volcanic eruption. Many Indians were said to have lost their lives in the upheaval. The lake is fed by the waters of Cypress Bayou and in former times most of Eastern Texas transportation was carried on by way of the Mississippi, Red, and Cypress rivers and Caddo Lake.
The Federal Government has made several cuts, or ditches as they are known for the purpose of straightening the channel and in these cuts are found many fish as well as some alligators. Catfish weighing more than fifty pounds have been taken from this stream.
Many club houses have been built along the shores of the lake and its tributaries, among them the Dallas, the Caddo, Port Caddo, Greenville, Jefferson-Atlanta, Meyers, Terry, and many others, both private and commercial.
OAKWOOD CEMETERY
It has been truly written that the history of Jefferson—its struggles, its earlier fight, its romance—is written in this old cemetery.
From the two iron posts that stand a few feet apart, once joined by iron chains, which marks the resting place of two artists who killed each other and are buried together, chained together, and unnamed, to the tomb erected by the State of Texas over one of Jefferson’s leading citizens, and down to the tiny sunken, graves of innumerable infants who died in the middle of the last century, Jefferson’s age-old saga is told among the tombs of its ancestors.
General Ochiltree’s Tomb
The State of Texas has placed over this famous son a lovely red granite marker, and from this marker we learn that General Ochiltree was Judge of the Fifth District in 1842, Secretary of the Treasury in 1844, and Attorney General of the Republic of Texas in 1845; also that the County of Ochiltree was named for him.
Another monument that passersby regard with reverence is that of D. B. Culberson, long a Senator from this District and father of the Texas Governor, Chas. A. Culberson. The inscription on this monument is simple: “David B. Culberson, Sept. 29, 1830—May 7, 1900—Erected by his sons.”
OTHERS: Nancy Ann Waskom, Dated 1819-1852.