Name: Saratoga, Texas
Address: Saratoga, TX

Saratoga, TX RoadyGoat

Saratoga, Texas. It’s a small place, nestled in the Big Thicket, not far from the Hardin County line. Today, it’s easy to drive right through, but for a while, this little spot was something of a magnet.

Mr. Big Thicket RoadyGoat

1900

One of the most important naturalists in Texas history had little formal schooling and grew up in a Saratoga boarding house. Lance Rosier was born on a farm just south of town, then raised by his aunt Mattie Jordan Evans at her Vines Hotel here in the oil-boom settlement. He taught himself botany by walking the Big Thicket on foot and reading library books, until he could name nearly every plant and animal in the region. For decades he guided schoolchildren, scientists, and photographers through the woods he loved. His fame grew so wide that letters reached him addressed only 'Mr. Big Thicket, Texas.' Rosier died in 1970, four years before Congress protected the Big Thicket. Today the preserve's largest section, roughly 25,000 acres, carries his name: the Lance Rosier Unit.

A Mountain of Salt Under Your Feet RoadyGoat

1901

Beneath Saratoga sits a buried pillar of salt pushing up through the earth like a slow fountain of rock. This is a salt dome. Ancient sea salt, lighter than the mud piled on top of it, rises over millions of years and bends the surrounding rock layers into arched traps. Oil and gas migrate upward and pool against those bends and inside the dome's cracked cap. At Saratoga the caprock, a mass of anhydrite and gypsum topped with limestone, sits about 1,500 feet down; the salt itself begins near 1,900 feet. Just months after the Spindletop gusher of January 1901 stunned the world, large-scale drilling proved Saratoga was the same kind of structure. Wells came in, and by 1903 the field was pumping roughly 3,000,000 barrels a year from that hidden dome of salt.

The Light of Saratoga — Bragg Road, Big Thicket

1902

Bragg Road — known locally as the Ghost Road, and the light it's famous for as the Light of Saratoga — is an eight-mile, dead-straight dirt road through the Big Thicket in Hardin County, Texas, near the town of Saratoga. It was originally a railroad: the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway opened the line between Bragg and Saratoga in nineteen oh two, carrying people, cattle, oil, and timber out t…

Curated → · 4.9 mi away

Ghost Road: The Big Thicket Light

Ghost Road runs arrow straight through territory that was once thicket, cypress brake, baygalls and lobolly pines. It began as the bed of a branch rail line of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe that ran between the towns of Bragg and Saratoga to provide access to the timberlands of the area. At the southern end of the line was the McShane Lumber Company operation at Dearborn. Tales of a ghostly light began even as the line was in service, before automobiles ran through the area. The stories continued after the line was converted to a county road in the 1930s. Arthur Fullingim, outspoken editor of the Kountze News, published accounts of ghost light sightings, which brought widespread attention and interest. The road became a popular site for travelers, young couples and others interested in the phenomenon, known as the Ghost, Bragg, Big Thicket or Saratoga Light. Explanations over the years have included the natural -- swamp gas or reflection of phosphoric foxfire; the historical -- gold hidden by Spanish soldiers and explorers; as well as the supernatural -- the spirits of a rail worker searching for his lost head, a groom looking for his murdered bride, a lost hunter, disgruntled rail workers or jayhawkers. In addition to its place in popular lore, the road's once dense timber stands attracted development and lumber interests. For decades, county officials disagreed with others, including noted Big Thicket conservationist R.E. Jackson, over the road's importance. In the late 1990s, it finally became a protected resource. Today, it draws visitors enticed by its flora and fauna, as well as by its mythic, ghostly lights. (2005)

Historical Marker →

Lance Rosier

1929

The Big Thicket National Preserve exists today in large part due to the efforts of a few dedicated individuals who took up the causes of conservation and wildlife preservation against great odds, both political and social. Lance Rosier was one of those early advocates. Rosier was born in what is now the Preserve unit that bears his name. He grew up in Saratoga, in the center of the Big Thicket, living with his aunt Mattie Evans in her Vines Hotel. There, he listened to stories told by roughnecks, drummers and pioneers. He spent much of his youth wandering the nearby woods and learning about the native flora and fauna. After serving in the U.S. Army, he became a timber cruiser, as well as a guide for surveyors. Authors and journalists wrote numerous stories about the self-taught naturalist who provided tours for scientists, photographers, politicians, students, scholars, conservationists and others who sought his expertise. His knowledge grew through work with scientists who identified plants for him, thus expanding his understanding of habitats, life cycles, medical or industrial uses, and scientific names of species of plant life. His tours featured extras, like stories of an encounter with a black panther. Known as "Mr. Big Thicket," Rosier served as a bridge between the first East Texas Big Thicket Association (1929-1957), led by R.E. Jackson, another regional conservationist, and others to establish the second Big Thicket Association in 1964. Unfortunately, Rosier died in 1970, a few years before the realization of his dream to have the unique environmental area declared a national park. Today, his legacy lives on in the protection and continuing research of his beloved Big Thicket. (2005)

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200 Feet North to Site of Hardin County Discovery Well

1901

At this site in 1901 the first oil well in Hardin County was brought in at a depth of 995 feet by J. B. (Ben) Hooks and brothers H. A. (Bud), J. L. (Sam), and George. The ensuing boom town was first called "New Sour Lake" but later named "Saratoga" after the famous New York resort. (1971)

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Jones, George Glenn

1931

George Glenn Jones, renowned country music singer, son of Clare (Patterson) and George Washington Jones, was born at Saratoga, Texas, on September 12, 1931. Jones was the youngest of eight children. His father worked as a log truck driver in the timberlands of the Big Thicket area surrounding Saratoga. Outside of work, the elder Jones was a heavy drinker who frequently quarreled with his wife and would often force his children to sing songs for him after a night out at the local honky-tonks. Jones's mother was a religious woman who took her son to church at a local Pentecostal congregation. George's father gave him his first guitar when he was nine years old, and Jones learned to sing and play through his family and at church. In addition to his Pentecostal upbringing, the Grand Ole Opry radio show was a major early influence on Jones. Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe were childhood favorites. In 1942 Jones's father found work as a pipefitter in the shipyard at Beaumont. In the wartime boom-town, young George Jones was exposed to the music of the proliferating working-class honky-tonks. He first played for money at a penny arcade on Pearl Street and soon became a regular busker on the streets of Beaumont. After discovering that he could earn money as a musician, Jones launched a professional musical career and never completed a formal education beyond the seventh grade. As a teenager, he first played on the radio for KTXJ in Jasper and he performed regularly in rowdy East Texas honky-tonks. At the age of eighteen he married his first wife, Dorothy Bonvillion, and she soon became pregnant. The marriage ended when Dorothy filed for divorce in July 1951, charging Jones with being a violent alcoholic. Jones was ordered to pay child support and quickly fell behind on the payments, for which he was jailed in September 1951. His first daughter, Susan, was born in October, and at a judge's suggestion Jones joined the United States Marine Corps in November 1951 to avoid further jail time. He was stationed in San Diego, California, and served in the Marines until November 1953. Upon his discharge from the Marines, Jones returned to East Texas. In early 1954 he signed with Starday Records, founded by Jack Starnes and Harold Wescott "Pappy" Daily , and Daily became his manager and producer. "No Money in This Deal" was released as Jones's first single under the Beaumont area Starday label in February 1954. Although the song failed to chart nationally, it was reviewed favorably in Billboard . During the early 1950s Jones performed regularly on KNUZ's Houston Jamboree , played honky-tonk gigs in Texas and Louisiana, and worked as a disc jockey on KTRM-Beaumont. It was while working at KTRM that Jones reportedly acquired one of his nicknames, "The Possum," due to his close set eyes and wide grin. In September 1954 he married his second wife, Shirley Ann Corley. She bore him two sons over the course of their marriage, Jeffrey Glenn Jones in October 1955 and Bryan Daily Jones in July 1958. In October 1955 "Why Baby Why" became Jones's first Top 40 hit, peaking at Number 4 on the Billboard country charts. As a result of his rising popularity, Jones was invited to become a regular cast member on the Louisiana Hayride in 1956, where he often shared the nightly lineup with Elvis Presley . Jones briefly delved into rockabilly in the mid-1950s under the moniker Thumper Jones. During the early part of his career he did considerable songwriting as well. After making his first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry in early 1956, Jones became a regular member in August of that year. In 1959 he achieved his first Number 1 single with "White Lightning," a song authored by another Starday musician, Jiles P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson . Around that time, Jones made his home in Vidor just north of Beaumont. The next decade saw Jones emerge as a major country music star, with more than fifty Top 40 hits, including three Number 1 singles-"Tender Years," "She Thinks I Stil

Tsha Handbook → · 8.4 mi away

Big Thicket Light

1901

The Big Thicket light (or the Saratoga light) is a ghostly light that periodically appears at night on the Old Bragg Road that runs through the heart of the Big Thicket in Hardin County. Bragg Road was originally a seven-mile bed for a Santa Fe branchline from Bragg Station, on what is now Farm Road 1293, to Saratoga. The rails were laid in 1901 and pulled in 1934, but the bed remained and became a well-used road through some of the densest woods in the Big Thicket. The Big Thicket light was reported while the tracks were still down. In summer 1960 Archer Fullingim , editor and publisher of the Kountze News , began running front page stories speculating on the nature of the light; these stories were picked up and carried in metropolitan newspapers in Texas and elsewhere. Light seers visited Bragg Road by the hundreds. They described the light, disagreeing as to its color or characteristics, but agreeing that a ghostly light of some sort frequented the road. The lights were variously rationalized as the reflections of car lights going in to Saratoga, patches of low-grade gas, a reflection of foxfire or swamp fire, or the figment of hysterical imaginations. More romantic explanations produced stories about local history. The light was a mystical phenomenon that typically frequented areas where treasure was buried, and some early Spanish conquistadors had cached a golden hoard in the thicket but had failed to return for it. The light was a little bit of fire that never was extinguished after the Kaiser Burnout or the ghost of a man shot during the burnout, when the Confederate soldiers fired part of the thicket to flush out Jayhawkers who did not choose to fight for the South. Another story tells of a railroad man who was decapitated in a train wreck on this part of the Saratoga line; they found his body but never could locate his head, and the body continues to roam up and down the right-of-way looking for the lost member. And one tale tells that the light comes from a spectral fire pan carried by a night hunter who got lost in the Big Thicket years ago. He still wanders, never stopping to rest, always futilely searching for a way out of the mud and briars. The story of the Mexican cemetery tells of a crew of Mexicans who were hired to help cut the right-of-way and lay the tracks. But, rumor has it that the foreman of the road gang, rather than pay them a large amount of accumulated wages, killed the men and kept the money. They were hurriedly interred in the dense woods nearby, from whence come their restless, uneasy souls, clouded in ghostly light to haunt that piece of ground that cost them their lives. And there is the story of a man who sold his farm and parted with everything that he couldn't pack in a suitcase, to work on the railroad. He was devoted to the line and became a brakeman on the "Saratoga." When the Santa Fe began to cut down on its runs, he found himself without a job or prospects. He died soon after, and his lonesome and troubled spirit still walks the road bed with its brakeman's lantern, the Big Thicket light, looking for the life that left him behind.

Tsha Handbook → · 8.4 mi away

Saratoga, Texas

Music in Saratoga

Songs About Saratoga

Artists From Saratoga

Rivers & Roads in Song near Saratoga

History of Saratoga

Saratoga, TX RoadyGoat

Mr. Big Thicket RoadyGoat

A Mountain of Salt Under Your Feet RoadyGoat

The Light of Saratoga — Bragg Road, Big Thicket

Ghost Road: The Big Thicket Light

Lance Rosier

200 Feet North to Site of Hardin County Discovery Well

Jones, George Glenn

Big Thicket Light

Things to Do in Saratoga

Everything Near Saratoga