Jefferson Historic District

Jefferson, in far northeast Texas, is a district of about 107 acres on a horseshoe bend of Big Cypress Bayou. It was once the second largest immigration port in Texas, where steamboats unloaded settlers and goods bound for the western interior. The district holds 56 buildings of state significance, and the town's appearance from about 1880 survives almost intact. Most houses are symmetrical one-story white frame buildings with front porches and doors with sidelights and transoms, in the Greek Revival manner that builders kept using after the Civil War. Notable examples include the Presbyterian Manse, begun in 1839, the Italianate House of the Seasons, the Sedberry House and the Excelsior House hotel, which has a late 1850s core and an 1872 wing. Brick commercial buildings stand near the bayou, where wharf foundations remain. River trade declined after the war, and restoration work began in 1941, leaving a well-preserved nineteenth-century town.