Courtney to Illinois Bend
Aliases: The Courtney Ferry, Awalt Cable Ferry
Click on photos to enlarge
Aliases: The Courtney Ferry, Awalt Cable Ferry
Click on photos to enlarge
Courtney Ferry ca. late 1890s
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Courtney Ferry 1919
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Courtney Ferry 1920s
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Courtney Airline Bridge 1927
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Henry Courtney settled in 1870 near the mouth of Mud Creek and established a town in the years that followed. The road headed due south out of Courtney roughly 1. 1/2 miles before reaching the high bank of the river then followed the river bank west ¼ mile before approaching the river at GPS coordinates 33.919306, -97.489862. The ferry came into operation in the mid to late 1870s and there are many references to Courtney “owning”, “running”, and “operating” the ferry. The river could be forded a mile or so up river at the Board Tree ford near the mouth of Texas’ Board Tree Creek at GPS coordinates 33.895966, -97.550029. The ferry was almost exclusively known as “The Courtney Ferry”.
During the late 1870s or early 80s Henry Courtney’s son-in-law Martin Pool Prater came to Courtney and worked for Henry. Martin had married Henry’s daughter Emory in 1878. Martin pig farmed and ran the ferry boat crossing from Courtney to Illinois Bend. Tragically, about 1883/84 during a freezing weather Martin tripped on a footbridge leading to the ferry boat. He fell in the freezing water and nearly drowned. He survived the near drowning but did not recover from his injuries and most likely caught pneumonia. He died a few days later and is most likely buried in the Courtney Cemetery. Ida Gilkey Thompson tells or her arrival to the Flat, “In 1885 my father moved to the Chickasaw Nation and settled at Courtney Flat which was just a little settlement on a farm owned by a white man called Dad Courtney.” “….he kept writing us about the Chickasaw Country and in 1888 we decided to move here, so we came on the train to Saint Jo in Montague County, Texas, and Father met us there in a wagon and brought us to his home at Courtney Flat.” “We crossed Red River on a cable drawn ferry boat as there was a great deal of water in the river. Dad Courtney ran the ferry boat. In dry times Red River could be forded; I have often waded across the water at such times. “ “Then when the floods came I have seen it miles wide washing down trees and everything. At one time a flood came and on the Texas side some people had built houses and cleard land down in the Red River valley and were living there. The water kept getting higher and the people were forced to get their stock out and leave their homes. Their houses were washed away and some of their trunks were later found lodged in the tops of trees down the Red River. These places were never built back.” (IPH Int. # 8777 Ida Gilkey Thompson) The Driskell family arrived at Courtney Flats in 1875. Frank Driskell shared the following information: “The Courtney Flats ferry boat was owned and operated by George Awalt. He had a ferry cable to run his boat across with, and one time the river was up and we had to go across the river to get a doctor for some sick folks and the closest doctor was at Spanish Fort. It took us about two or three hours to get across as the water was so high and would was the boat so that we would almost turn over. “ From Frank’s description he clearly identifies that George Awalt “owned” and “operated the ferry. Since it was a “cable” ferry we might assume that in the medical emergency they were able to cross the river at Courtney and unable to cross at the more direct route to Spanish Fort from the Petersburg location. |
Frank continues, “One time there was a very wealthy cattleman who came down to this ferry and wanted to go across; the river was so high and swift that the ferry owner would not attempt to make the trip, so this man said to me that he would give me $25.00 if I would take him across, so the ferry owner said if I wanted to risk it I could use the boat.”
“When we were out about half way across the cable broke with us and we just happened to catch one end of the cable as the boat swung around, so there we were out there washing around holding to this end for a long time. Then in come mysterious way we were washed back and we managed to get hold of the cable and tied the two ends back together and came on across.” (iph int 4934 Frank Driskell) Who “owned” the ferry, George Awalt or Henry Courtney? While no records are available for proof, Henry Courtney most likely owned the ferry in the late 1870s and early 80s. We know that Courtney’s son-in-law Prater ran the ferry up to 1883/84. From Ida Gilkey Thompson we know that Henry Courtney “ran” the ferry in 1888 and that it was a cable ferry. George Awalt is usually referenced with the “cable” ferry. He may have taken ownership of the ferry by this time, installed the cable device, and employed Henry Courtney. Or perhaps Henry Courtney originally installed the cable ferry and later sold to George Awalt. At any rate George and Alice Awalt resided at Spanish Fort so he would have hired men to “run” the ferry. At the age of forty three George Awalt died April 1st 1898. Interestingly Henry Courtney died nine months later. Alice Awalt was pregnant at the time George died and a daughter Georgia was born the following November but the child lived less than a year. A few years later Alice married a man by the name of Stephens and had one daughter before the marriage ended in divorce. Shortly afterwards, Alice and her children moved to Grayson County then on to Corsicana where she died in 1926. There are a handful of names of men that ran the Courtney ferry before the turn of the century. Henry Malcom Denny, the first postmaster of Petersburg moved to Courtney and "ran" the ferry around 1894. He moved to New Mexico in 1899. Bill Lewis Dempsey and his half- brother Jim Bagwell, Courtney residents, worked on the ferry for Mr. Courtney during the years 1896 through 1898. Currently we don’t know who operated or ran the Courtney ferry after 1900. The Courtney Ferry was purchased by The Austin Bridge Company and ferry services ended with the opening of the Courtney Airline Bridge in 1927. The bridge was located a few hundred yards downstream from the ferry location. Six short years later the bridge was destroyed and washed away by a massive flood on Red River in 1933. Ferry service was not re-opened and crossing at this location were not restored until the building of the Toavoya Bridge. (By Scott Black) |