Continued from (roadtrip post 1)
Leaving the town of Jefferson and the very cold, haunted Excelsior hotel in our rearview mirror (see that post here), we headed to nearby Caddo Lake. Unknown to my good friend and traveling companion Chip, I had made reservations for us to take a personal guided boat tour through the bayous, channels, waterways and sloughs of the beautiful, but mysterious lake. Home to a forest of cypress trees, waterfowl, over 240 species of birds plus an abundance of wildlife, it was sure to be an interesting excursion and a nice surprise for my buddy. It was not to be, however. The day had dawned with a cloudless sky and a bright sun, but the temperature had only risen to 30 degrees and there was a consistent cold wind blowing. Spending the morning on a lake in an open boat in weather like that was not my idea of a good time. While Chip was on a potty break, I took the opportunity to call our boat guy to cancel the tour. He said he was just about to call me and ask if we could cancel. Seems he didn't want to be out on the lake in that cold either. Nice guy, he waved the late cancellation fee. I'll surprise Chip with it later on one of our road trips in warmer months!
Taking Texas Highway 134 east about 18 miles brought us to the little town of Uncertain, Texas. Being the inquisitive kind, I wondered how in the world a town came by the name "Uncertain." Seems back in the early days when Texas was a country, the town existed right on the boundary line between America and Texas and everyone was uncertain whether it was in America or Texas. Many of the 250 or so citizens of the town were owners of fishing, hunting, and boating businesses. Like most people, they were not excited about paying taxes so when the tax collector from Texas showed up, they claimed to be on the American side and when the American tax collector showed up, they claimed they were on the Texas side. Since the boundary wasn't formally set yet, the tax collectors had to walk away empty-handed.
In the 1940s, the boundary had been set with the town being declared in Texas. Trying to promote tourism, city officials decided to incorporate in order to provide places of legal alcohol consumption. The vote to incorporate was a close one, city officials were uncertain whether the measure would pass or not. When the vote to incorporate was won, the town's history of uncertainty was used for the town name.
At one time, there were almost 250 residents of Uncertain, but that number has dropped since the 1980s. The population from the last census shows only 97 now call Uncertain home. The day we slowly drove through, you couldn't prove anybody lived there. We drove around for almost an hour, finding several Uncertain places of business, the Uncertain storage, the Uncertain antique store, and even the Uncertain church. None of them appeared to be open. It wasn't really a surprise when we found the Church of Uncertain to be non-denominational. And we never saw a single person out and about. Maybe they were all being smart and staying inside out of the cold.
We left the quiet little town behind us to its uncertain future, drove through the Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge and the town of Karnack and jumped on Hwy 43 headed to the historic and beautiful Scott Plantation Cemetery in Scottsville. Stay tuned.
Leaving the town of Jefferson and the very cold, haunted Excelsior hotel in our rearview mirror (see that post here), we headed to nearby Caddo Lake. Unknown to my good friend and traveling companion Chip, I had made reservations for us to take a personal guided boat tour through the bayous, channels, waterways and sloughs of the beautiful, but mysterious lake. Home to a forest of cypress trees, waterfowl, over 240 species of birds plus an abundance of wildlife, it was sure to be an interesting excursion and a nice surprise for my buddy. It was not to be, however. The day had dawned with a cloudless sky and a bright sun, but the temperature had only risen to 30 degrees and there was a consistent cold wind blowing. Spending the morning on a lake in an open boat in weather like that was not my idea of a good time. While Chip was on a potty break, I took the opportunity to call our boat guy to cancel the tour. He said he was just about to call me and ask if we could cancel. Seems he didn't want to be out on the lake in that cold either. Nice guy, he waved the late cancellation fee. I'll surprise Chip with it later on one of our road trips in warmer months!
In the 1940s, the boundary had been set with the town being declared in Texas. Trying to promote tourism, city officials decided to incorporate in order to provide places of legal alcohol consumption. The vote to incorporate was a close one, city officials were uncertain whether the measure would pass or not. When the vote to incorporate was won, the town's history of uncertainty was used for the town name.
We left the quiet little town behind us to its uncertain future, drove through the Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge and the town of Karnack and jumped on Hwy 43 headed to the historic and beautiful Scott Plantation Cemetery in Scottsville. Stay tuned.
