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Mooringsport, Louisiana

Everything Mooringsport is known for

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Music in Mooringsport

Songs About Mooringsport

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Artists From Mooringsport

L
Leadbelly
folk

Rivers & Roads in Song near Mooringsport

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Mooringsport.

Interstate 49 4 songs US Route 71 2 songs Red River 88 songs Interstate 20 13 songs U.S. Route 59 9 songs Sulphur River 2 songs

History of Mooringsport

Trees Older Than the Nation, Fish Older Than Dinosaurs RoadyGoat

The dark, mirror-still water around Uncertain hides two of the oldest living things you will ever drift past. First, the trees. Those flared, knobby-kneed bald cypress rising straight out of the water, draped in gray Spanish moss, are among the biggest and longest-lived trees in Texas. Some of them are reported to be many centuries old, standing here since long before this was Texas, before it was a republic, before the flag ever changed. A cypress out on Caddo can outlive a dozen human generations without moving an inch. Second, the fish. Caddo is home to the paddlefish, a genuinely prehistoric creature with a long, flat, paddle-shaped snout and a body plan that has barely changed in around three hundred million years. That is older than the dinosaurs. Paddlefish once vanished from these waters, and one of the quiet success stories of recent lake restoration has been bringing them back. So when you glide through this bayou maze, remember you are moving between living things whose family lines were ancient when the first dinosaurs showed up, and trees that were already old when the United States was brand new. Uncertain sits on the edge of deep, deep time.

RoadyGoat → · 9.4 mi away

A Bayou So Special the World Made a List for It RoadyGoat

For a town of fewer than one hundred people, Uncertain sits beside something with genuine global standing. In nineteen ninety-three, Caddo Lake was named a Wetland of International Importance under an international treaty called the Ramsar Convention, an agreement among nations to protect the world's most vital wetlands, especially those that shelter waterfowl. Caddo became one of only a small handful of sites in the entire United States to earn that recognition, joining a worldwide list that includes some of the planet's most treasured swamps, marshes, and deltas. Think about that for a second. There are enormous, famous American wetlands that never made this list, and yet this quiet East Texas bayou maze of cypress and moss, tucked against a town that cannot decide how it got its name, is on it. The designation later grew to cover thousands more acres, including land once part of an old army ammunition plant that has since become a national wildlife refuge. So the water you see from Uncertain is not just pretty. On paper, in the eyes of the world, it is one of the important wild places on Earth.

RoadyGoat → · 9.4 mi away

When Steamboats Ruled This Swamp RoadyGoat

It is hard to picture now, looking at this sleepy cypress maze, but Caddo Lake was once a genuine highway for steamboats, and that history ties right back to why this shoreline was ever called a landing at all. In the middle eighteen hundreds, once crews cleared enough of that giant Red River logjam, riverboats could churn their way up through Caddo Lake and along Big Cypress Bayou. Bustling little ports sprang up on and around the lake, and just upstream the town of Jefferson grew into one of the largest inland ports in the entire country, unloading cargo and passengers deep in the East Texas woods. Steamboat captains threading these stump-filled, shifting waters had to be part sailor, part gambler, and mooring a boat along these uncertain banks was no easy trick, which is exactly the root of one of the leading stories behind the name of Uncertain itself. Then the boom broke. When engineers finally blasted the last of the logjam apart in the eighteen seventies, the water dropped, the channels shallowed, and the steamboats stopped coming. The ports faded. The swamp went quiet. What is left is the calm, mysterious Caddo you drift through today.

RoadyGoat → · 9.4 mi away

Potter's Point

1837

Site of one of most famous events in Texas. Robert Potter-- a signer, Texas Declaration of Independence, a chief author of Republic's Constitution, first Secretary of Navy, Republic of Texas-- settled 1837 on Caddo Lake. A former U. S. Congressman, he won election 1840 to Texas Senate. After Senate adjourned in 1842 he tried to arrest his political foe, William P. Rose. On night of March 1, 1842, Rose led armed men to Potter's home. At dawn Senator Potter jumped into the lake to swim for help, but was shot to death. He is buried in State Cemetery, Austin. (1969)

Historical Marker → · 9.6 mi away

Uncertain - The Town With No Answers

1960

Uncertain, Texas, population around 94, sits on the shores of Caddo Lake. The name allegedly comes from early steamboat pilots who were 'uncertain' about where to dock.

9.5 mi away

Johnson, Lyndon B., Mrs.

1912

(Wife of 36th President of the United States) On December 22, 1912, in the family home 2.7 miles south, was born Claudia Alta Taylor. She was third child (only daughter) of Thomas Jefferson and Minnie Pattillo Taylor. Her father had a general store in Karnack for many years. Young "Lady Bird" (a pet name originated by her nurse, Alice Tittle) attended public schools in Fern community, near here, and in Jefferson and Marshall, and earned Bachelor of Arts and Journalism degrees at the University of Texas. On November 17, 1934, she married Lyndon Baines Johnson, congressional staff member who became head of National Youth Administration in Texas in 1935. The Johnsons are parents of two daughters, Lynda Bird and Luci Baines. During her husband's rise to world leadership-- as United States Congressman, Senator, Senate Majority Leader, Vice President, and President-- Mrs. Johnson added to role of wife and mother that of hostess to many of the greatest statesmen of the world. As First Lady of the United States, she is true to her East Texas heritage of love for gardens, trees, unspoiled natural scenery, and historic sites. She sponsors vital national programs of conservation, beautification, and historical preservation. Outstanding Women of Texas Series, 1967.

Historical Marker → · 12.3 mi away

Uncertain, TX

Uncertain, also known as Uncertain Landing, is an incorporated community on the shores of Caddo Lake seventeen miles northeast of Marshall in northeastern Harrison County. The site was once known as Uncertain Landing, so named, according to one local tradition, because of the difficulty steamboat captains in earlier days had in mooring their vessels there. Another tradition has it that the town name came from the uncertainty that residents had about their citizenship before the boundary between the United States and the Republic of Texas had been established. The latter uncertainty was a substantial benefit to residents who did not like paying taxes. In the early 1900s the site included a hunting, fishing, and boating society called the Uncertain Club. During the 1940s the community had scattered dwellings, a sawmill, several camping lodges, and some five other businesses. In a bid to promote tourism by providing an area with legal alcohol consumption, the community was incorporated as Uncertain in 1961. Former city officials claimed that uncertainty at the time of incorporation led to the community name. That year many of its 213 citizens were fishing-camp operators. The population of Uncertain was estimated at 189 in 1988, and the town limits were irregularly shaped, as they were designed to include most of the restaurants and fishing camps along that part of the Caddo Lake shoreline. Beer Smith's Caddo Lake Airport, known as the Fly and Fish, also lay within the boundaries of the community. In 1990 the population of Uncertain was 194. The population was 150 in 2000, but fell to 97 by 2015.

Tsha Handbook → · 10.1 mi away

Caddo Lake

The only natural lake in Texas, originally formed by the Great Raft log jam on the Red River. A mysterious bald cypress swamp draped in Spanish moss.

Natural Landmark → · 12.4 mi away

Dehahuit’s Caddo Village

1799

Dehahuit’s Caddo village was one of four Caddo (Kadohadacho) villages known to have existed in eastern Harrison County in the late 1830s ( see also the NORTH CADDO , MIDDLE CADDO and BIG SPRING CADDO villages). Dehahuit, chief of the Kadohadacho, is known to have lived at this site from at least as early as 1805 until his death in March 1833. Dehahuit and his village figured prominently in the 1806 Red River expedition journals of both Thomas Freeman and Peter Custis . The settlement site is located on Farm Road 134, approximately two miles northwest of Waskom. Like the North and Middle Caddo village sites, Dehahuit’s Caddo settlement was located on the Natchitoches-to-Pecan Point Road. The precise date the village was established is unknown, however, in testimony related to the Grappe land claim, two old settlers in the area indicated that the Caddo first occupied the site between 1799 and 1800. The village was referenced in the reports of both Lt. Joseph Bonnell in April 1836 and Maj. Bennet Riley in August of that same year. White settlers probably destroyed the village in the unrest that characterized eastern Harrison County in the winter of 1837–38, most likely in the period between February 20, 1838, when John S. “Rip” Ford surveyed the Francisco Valmore headright, and April 27, 1838, when the Americans surveyed T17N, R17W.

Tsha Handbook → · 15.8 mi away

Things to Do in Mooringsport

quirky 8.9 mi away
Caddo Lake

The only natural lake in Texas is also the most haunted-looking -- twenty-five thousand acres of bald cypress swamp draped in Spanish moss straddling the…
quirky 22.9 mi away
Jay Goulds Curse on Jefferson

When railroad baron Jay Gould rolled into Jefferson in the 1870s he had a simple proposition: let me bring my railroad through town. The city fathers flush…
historical 23.0 mi away
The Great Raft That Built a City

For centuries an 80-mile logjam called the Great Raft choked the Red River so completely that it backed water all the way up into Caddo Lake. That accidental…
nature 10.8 mi away
Caddo Lake

The only natural lake in Texas. Spanish moss-draped cypress trees and alligators.
historical 23.0 mi away
Last Confederate Powder Magazine in Texas

In 1863 with the Civil War grinding on the Confederacy needed a safe place to store gunpowder and ammunition deep in the Texas interior. They built an ordnance…
quirky 23.0 mi away
Spielberg Fled the Excelsior House

The Excelsior House has been hosting guests since the 1850s and most of them sleep just fine. Steven Spielberg was not one of them. The story goes that the…
spooky 23.0 mi away
The Jefferson Hotel

One of the most haunted hotels in the South. Built in the 1850s in the once-booming riverport of Jefferson. Guests report phantom footsteps slamming doors and…
historical 23.1 mi away
Texas Second City on the Bayou

Picture this: its 1850 and youre standing on the banks of Big Cypress Bayou watching a parade of steamboats stacked high with cotton bales. Jefferson was no…

Everything Near Mooringsport

48 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

  • Caddo Lake Drawbridge · 0.6 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Ever wonder how early 20th-century oil rigs got around? You're about to cross a bridge built specifically for them! This isn't just any old bridge; the Caddo Lake Drawbridge, also known as the Mooringsport Bridge, was…

  • Caddo Lake · 8.9 mi · Things to Do

    The only natural lake in Texas is also the most haunted-looking -- twenty-five thousand acres of bald cypress swamp draped in Spanish moss straddling the…

  • Trees Older Than the Nation, Fish Older Than Dinosaurs · 9.4 mi

    The dark, mirror-still water around Uncertain hides two of the oldest living things you will ever drift past. First, the trees. Those flared, knobby-kneed bald cypress rising straight out of the water, draped in gray…

  • A Bayou So Special the World Made a List for It · 9.4 mi

    For a town of fewer than one hundred people, Uncertain sits beside something with genuine global standing. In nineteen ninety-three, Caddo Lake was named a Wetland of International Importance under an international…

  • When Steamboats Ruled This Swamp · 9.4 mi

    It is hard to picture now, looking at this sleepy cypress maze, but Caddo Lake was once a genuine highway for steamboats, and that history ties right back to why this shoreline was ever called a landing at all. In the…

  • Uncertain - The Town With No Answers · 9.5 mi · Historical Marker

    Uncertain, Texas, population around 94, sits on the shores of Caddo Lake. The name allegedly comes from early steamboat pilots who were 'uncertain' about where to dock.

  • Potter's Point · 9.6 mi · Historical Marker

    Site of one of most famous events in Texas. Robert Potter-- a signer, Texas Declaration of Independence, a chief author of Republic's Constitution, first Secretary of Navy, Republic of Texas-- settled 1837 on Caddo…

  • Dick and Charlie's Tea Room · 9.9 mi · Web

    On a stretch of Caddo Lake just east of Uncertain, a weathered shack stands on stilts over the dark water. Dick and Charlie's Tea Room. The cabin went up around nineteen hundred, sitting right on the line between Marion…

  • Uncertain, TX · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Uncertain, also known as Uncertain Landing, is an incorporated community on the shores of Caddo Lake seventeen miles northeast of Marshall in northeastern Harrison County. The site was once known as Uncertain Landing,…

  • A Name With No Certain Origin · 10.3 mi

    You're in Uncertain, Texas, so here's the uncertainty tangent behind the name: the town's naming story is appropriately unresolved. One tradition says steamboat captains found the Caddo Lake landing difficult to moor…

  • A Thirty Percent Forecast Is Not a Broken Promise · 10.3 mi

    You're in Uncertain, Texas, so here's the uncertainty tangent behind the name: probability describes patterns or degrees of belief under stated assumptions, not a guarantee for one event. A thirty percent precipitation…

  • Two Famous Uncertainties That Are Not the Same · 10.3 mi

    You're in Uncertain, Texas, so here's the uncertainty tangent behind the name: Schrodinger's cat is a thought experiment designed to expose the strangeness of applying quantum superposition to an everyday cat; it was…

Show all 48 nearby places
  • Why Not Knowing Feels So Bad · 10.3 mi

    You're in Uncertain, Texas, so here's the uncertainty tangent behind the name: human brains constantly predict what comes next. Uncertainty can keep attention and stress systems active because no response can yet be…

  • Certain, Vivid, and Wrong · 10.3 mi

    You're in Uncertain, Texas, so here's the uncertainty tangent behind the name: memory is reconstruction, not a perfect recording. Suggestive questions, repeated retelling, stress, expectations, and later information can…

  • Caddo Lake · 10.8 mi · Things to Do

    The only natural lake in Texas. Spanish moss-draped cypress trees and alligators.

  • Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant · 12.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Karnack, near the site of the Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant. Opened in 1941, this massive facility churned out over 400 million pounds of TNT during World War II. It later produced propellant…

  • Johnson, Lyndon B., Mrs. · 12.3 mi · Historical Marker

    (Wife of 36th President of the United States) On December 22, 1912, in the family home 2.7 miles south, was born Claudia Alta Taylor. She was third child (only daughter) of Thomas Jefferson and Minnie Pattillo Taylor.…

  • Caddo Lake · 12.4 mi · Natural Landmark

    The only natural lake in Texas, originally formed by the Great Raft log jam on the Red River. A mysterious bald cypress swamp draped in Spanish moss.

  • Port Caddo · 12.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Karnack, and just off this road lies the ghost of Port Caddo. This place was born in controversy, right in the middle of a 'neutral ground' disputed by nations from 1806. The folks here? They were…

  • Concord Methodist Church and Concord Masonic Lodge · 14.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Concord, a community that started in the 1850s with both a Masonic Lodge and a Methodist Church sharing the same building. Concord Lodge No. 77 was chartered in January of <say-as interpret-as="date"…

  • Swanson's Landing · 14.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising past the historic site of Swanson's Landing, a bustling port on Caddo Lake back in the 1830s. Founded by Peter Swanson, this was the gateway for goods heading to New Orleans and supplies for settlers. By…

  • Vaughan, Samuel Floyd, Dr. · 14.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the home of Dr. Samuel Floyd Vaughan, a physician who served Harrison County for decades. He bought this house back in 1870, after serving as a Civil War veteran. The home itself started much…

  • Wilkinson Cemetery · 14.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Marion County, past the Wilkinson Cemetery. This family burial ground served the Old Wilkinson Plantation. The earliest burial here, dating to 1854, was an infant daughter of Confederate veteran…

  • T.C. Lindsey & Co. — Open Since 1847 · 15.7 mi · Community Sourced

    This general store has been in continuous operation since 1847 — before the Civil War, before Texas had been a state for two years, before the railroad reached East Texas. T.C. Lindsey and Company in Jonesville is one…

  • Dehahuit’s Caddo Village · 15.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Dehahuit’s Caddo village was one of four Caddo (Kadohadacho) villages known to have existed in eastern Harrison County in the late 1830s ( see also the NORTH CADDO , MIDDLE CADDO and BIG SPRING CADDO villages).…

  • Waskom, TX · 15.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Waskom, right on the Louisiana border. This town started as Powell Town around 1850, named for a landowner. It became Waskom Station in 1872, and then just Waskom to honor a railroad director who…

  • Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Elysian Fields (Elysian Fields) · 16.4 mi

    Elysian Fields (Elysian Fields, TX) placed on the 2A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: John Beavers (2 HR).

  • Shreveport, LA · 16.6 mi · Local history

    Shreveport, a city forged on the banks of the Red River, has always had a spirit of reinvention. Established in 1836 and named for steamboat pioneer Captain Henry Miller Shreve, its location near the Texas border and on…

  • Shreveport Municipal Auditorium · 17.1 mi · Historical Marker

    Before Nashville's Grand Ole Opry would touch them, the unknowns came to Shreveport. The Louisiana Hayride, broadcast live from this municipal auditorium on KWKH radio every Saturday night from 1948 to 1960, was where…

  • Shreveport Municipal Memorial Auditorium · 17.3 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    This unassuming building holds a secret: it helped launch Elvis Presley into superstardom. From 1948 to 1960, the Shreveport Municipal Memorial Auditorium was home to the 'Louisiana Hayride,' a popular radio show. Many…

  • Strand Theatre (Shreveport, Louisiana) · 17.4 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Pull over for a minute; you're about to see a piece of Louisiana history that once hosted the biggest stars in show business. This is the Strand Theatre. Opened in 1925 by Julian and Abraham Saenger, it was known as…

  • Savannah Cemetery · 17.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Savannah Cemetery, which began as the family burial ground for Sofia Smith Whatley and her descendants. She moved to this area in the late 1800s to join her sons. The oldest marked grave here is an…

  • Antioch Baptist Church (Shreveport, Louisiana) · 17.5 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    This unassuming building represents freedom and faith, born from the ashes of slavery. In 1866, seventy-three Black members were honorably dismissed from Shreveport's First Baptist Church, a courageous act that paved…

  • The Border Town Hustle · 18.4 mi

    Waskom's nickname is 'The Gateway to Texas,' and that gateway has always been a place of opportunity. Because it's the first town you hit coming from Louisiana on I-20, its economy is uniquely tied to the differences…

  • The Waskom Gas Boom · 18.4 mi

    In the early 1900s Waskom was a quiet railroad town on the Louisiana line, a couple hundred people, sawmills and cotton gins. That ended in 1924, when wildcatters brought in oil right outside town. Waskom went from…

  • Waskom, TX · 18.4 mi

    In June 2019, the city council voted to outlaw abortion in the city, declaring Waskom a 'sanctuary city for the unborn', the first such city to designate itself as such. This ordinance has led other small cities in…

  • Sanctuary City for the Unborn · 18.4 mi

    In 2019, Waskom's city leaders put their town at the center of a national debate. Worried that a new abortion clinic might open just across the state line in Shreveport, the city council took a dramatic step: they…

  • Stagecoach Road · 18.9 mi

    Outside Marshall, in deep East Texas, Stagecoach Road is the real eighteen-fifties stage line that ran cotton and passengers down to Shreveport — run by planter William Bradfield until the railroad killed it off in the…

  • Marshall-Shreveport Stagecoach Road · 18.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the old route of the Marshall-Shreveport Stagecoach Road. Before the Civil War, this dusty track was Texas's superhighway, connecting Marshall to Shreveport and then on to New Orleans markets.…

  • Hand-hewn timbers, handmade brick · 19.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Scottsville, founded by William Thomas Scott, an 1834 Texas settler. Scott was a key player, serving as a Congressman and Senator for the Republic of Texas. He even helped charter a railroad…

  • Scott, William Thomas · 19.0 mi · Historical Marker

    (1811-1887), an 1834 Texas settler, and founder of Scottsville. Through father of his wife, Mary Rose, he was embroiled in local 1840s Regulator-Moderator Feud. Congressman and Senator in the Republic of Texas, he…

  • Reagan's Name Across East Texas · 19.0 mi

    Interstate Twenty, from the Dallas and Kaufman county line all the way east to the Louisiana border, is the Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway. The Legislature extended the name across East Texas in two thousand seven. An…

  • Taylor Cemetery · 19.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Taylor Cemetery, the earliest marked burial here a four-month-old named Emmett, laid to rest in May of <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1860</say-as>. Family legend says slaves were buried just…

  • Scottsville · 19.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Scottsville, a town founded way back in 1834 by William Thomas Scott. Scott wasn't just a pioneer; he was a statesman who helped shape this part of Texas. He lived until 1887, seeing a lot of…

  • Scottsville, TX · 19.1 mi

    Scottsville was founded in June 1840 by William Thomas Scott, his wife Mary Rose, and other members of their families. Scott quickly acquired several large parcels of land and established five cotton plantations,…

  • Scott, William Thomas · 19.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Harrison County, not far from where William Thomas Scott, a wealthy planter and legislator, founded the town of Scottsville. Scott immigrated to Texas in 1840, eventually amassing nearly 25,000…

  • Buard, Rebecca J. · 19.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Harrison County, near Scottsville, a place that was home to Rebecca Buard. Born in 1909, she grew up on her grandfather's farm, a man who bought land in 1867 thanks to his fishing income from…

  • The Wartime Highway Name That Waited Sixty Years · 20.0 mi

    The World War Two Veterans Memorial Highway is a name with an odd history. On August first, nineteen forty four, a Texas highway minute order named U S Highway Eighty the Veterans of World War Two Highway, all the way…

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