Off The Beaten Path - Double Bayou

[joe817]

Double Bayou is between the two forks of the Double Bayou and just north of the junction of Farm roads 1985 and 562, fifty miles southwest of Beaumont in west central Chambers County. The community dates from 1847 when James Jackson started his large 26,000 acre ranch. Sometime before 1900, John Jackson opened a general store here. Ralph Semmes Jackson (grandson of James Jackson) was born in the early 1900s. Ralph was to become the author of Home on the Double Bayou, one of the best place-related memoirs of Texas.

Ralph's brother Guy Cade Jackson was to become an early conservationist and county judge.

A post office opened just before the Civil War (1860) and closed just after the war's end (1866). It reopened in the country's centennial year of 1876 but closed for good in 1919. The lack of roads made Double Bayou inaccessible except by boat. Severe storms battered the region and thousands of cattle were lost (frozen) one brutal winter. The hurricane of 1915 devastated the area, flooding the homes of most residents yet the community remained.

Double Bayou is certainly off the beaten path but because of the heartfelt book, it has achieved a historical immortality for intimate portrayal of a unique place.