Texarkana

Infobox Settlement
official_name = Texarkana USA
settlement_type = City
nickname = TK, T-Town
motto = A City So Great It Took Two States


imagesize =
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subdivision_type = Country
subdivision_name = United States
subdivision_type1 = State
subdivision_name1 =|subdivision_type2 =|subdivision_name2 =

government_footnotes =
government_type =
leader_title = Texarkana, Texas Mayor
leader_name = Steve Mayo
leader_title1 = Texarkana, Arkansas Mayor
leader_name1 = Horace Shipp
established_title =
established_date =

area_footnotes =
area_magnitude =
area_total_km2 =
area_land_km2 =
area_water_km2 =
area_total_sq_mi =
area_land_sq_mi =
area_water_sq_mi =

population_as_of = 2006-2007 Community Profile
population_footnotes =
population_total = 136,584
population_density_km2 =
population_density_sq_mi =

timezone = Central (CST)
utc_offset = -6
timezone_DST = CDT
utc_offset_DST = -5
elevation_footnotes =
elevation_m = 91
elevation_ft = 299
latd = 33 |latm = 26 |lats = 14 |latNS = N
longd = 94 |longm = 4 |longs = 3 |longEW = W

postal_code_type = ZIP codes
postal_code = 75500-75599 (TX); 71854 (AR)
area_code = Area code 903, 870, 430
blank_name = FIPS code
blank_info = 48-72368GR|2
blank1_name = GNIS feature ID
blank1_info = 1369752GR|3
website =
footnotes =

The Texarkana, TX-Texarkana, AR Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), as defined by the United States Office of Management and Budget, is a two-county region anchored by the twin cities of Texarkana, Texas and Texarkana, Arkansas, and encompassing the surrounding communities in Bowie County, Texas and Miller County, Arkansas.

In 2005, the TMSA had a population of 136,584, residents within the city limits of the two cities, as stated in the 2006-2007 Community Profile released by the Texarkana Chamber of Commerce. About 68% of the population lives on the Texas side.

History

While the meaning of the name is clear – a portmanteau of Texas and Arkansas, it must be noted that Louisiana represents the ANA in (TEX ARK ANA) – the actual origin is that when surveyors first surveyed the land they also thought that the city would also be on the border of Louisiana. One tradition tells of a Red River steamboat named "The Texarkana", circa 1860. Another story mentions a storekeeper named Swindle in Red Land, Louisiana who concocted a drink called "Texarkana Bitters". A third account states that Col. Gus Knobel, a railroad surveyor, coined the name"The Handbook of Texas Online", [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/TT/hdt2.html Texarkana, TX] . Texas State Historical Association, University of Texas.] . Local lore suggests that, before Texas' annexation by the US, in the area north of the Sulphur River (and at times as far south as Cypress Creek or even the Sabine River) and on the south or west side of the Red River as far west as the current Arkansas-Oklahoma border there were territory disputes among Americans, Mexicans, or others (French, Spanish, even the English). Because of the disputes, lawlessness ruled in the area that at times was claimed by all three (TEX-ARK-ANA). Because of the area's name, the city on the border between Texas and Arkansas was given the label. "Texarkansas" is a frequent misspelling.

In 1876, Texarkana, Texas, was granted a charter under an act of the Texas legislature, and a Texarkana, Texas, post office operated from 1886 to 1892. At some point after that, Congressman John Morris Sheppard (D-TX) secured a postal order officially changing the name to "Texarkana, Arkansas-Texas".

MSA demographics

As of the censusGR|2 of 2000, there were 129,749 people, 48,695 households, and 34,524 families residing within the MSA. The racial makeup of the MSA was 53.49% White, 43.28% African American, 0.60% Native American, 0.41% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.94% from other races, and 1.24% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.57% of the population.

The median income for a household in the MSA was $31,976, and the median income for a family was $38,887. Males had a median income of $32,482 versus $21,408 for females. The per capita income for the MSA was $16,901.

New development

In the last few years Texarkana has developed very quickly, and a vast array of new stores and services have been popping up.

Much land along I-30 has been cleared between the Richmond road exit and the Nash exit to allow new businesses to be built and other businesses to expand. A multitude of restaurants also have been added over the last few years, such as On the Border, Hooters, and Olive Garden.

As of October 2007 there are multiple projects in progress to expand Texarkana's capabilities to handle the ever growing amounts of traffic, and to relieve strain on the Richmond Rd. and Summerhill Rd. exits. Access roads, bridges, and viaducts are being built, all to further the growth of the Texarkana business region.

The Texarkana Symphony Orchestra was established in 2005, providing the community with several professional concerts of classical music every year.

Economy

According to Forbes, Texarkana is predicted to grow 28.57% in GMP by 2012 making Texarkana the second fastest growing small metro areas in the country. Texarkana is a regional hub for cities in southwest Arkansas, northeast Texas, northwest Louisiana, and southeast Oklahoma.

Major employers are: Albertsons, Alcoa, American Screen Graphics, Burger King, BWI, Christus St.Michaels Health Systems, Collom & Carney Clinic, Cooper Tires & Rubber, Day & Zimmermann INC, Domtar, E-Z Mart Stores, Genoa Central School District, Hibernia Bank, Home Depot, Humco Holding Group INC, International Paper, JCM, JC Penney, Ledwell & Son Enterprises, Liberty Eylau ISD, Lowe's, APEC Texas, Mayo Manufacturing, McDonald's, Pleasant Grove ISD, Red River Army Depot & Tenets, Regions, Sears-Roebuck, Smith Blair, Southern Refrigerated, Texarkana College, Texarkana Gazette, City of Texarkana, AR, City of Texarkana, TX, Texarkana, TX ISD, Texarkana, AR Public Schools, Truman Arnold Company, Valor Telecom, Wadley Regional Medical, Wal-Mart/Sam's Club, Applied Control TechnologyAmerican Dehydrated Foods, AmeriCold Logistics, Carpco, Inc., Caraustar Industrial Consumer Products Group, Caraustar Lonestar Paper Sales, Coleman Cable, Commercial Manufacturing, Davis Roof Truss Manuf. Co.,Detroit Forms, Inc., Domtar, Inc.,DOW Chemical,Fay-J Packaging, FCM Products, Inc., First Tape and Label, Flowers Baking Co., GE Railcar Repair, International Paper Co., JCM Industries, Lear Siegler Service, Inc., M & M Milling, Martin Marietta Materials, Inc., Martin Resources, N.L. Baroid Petroleum Services, Newcourt, Inc., Paper Chemicals, Inc., Parks Metal Fabricators, Precision Metal Industries, Precision Roll Grinders, Rimcor, River Valley Animal Foods, Smith-Blair, Inc., The Sterno Group, Texarkana Tank Car Manufacturer., Inc., Tri-State Iron & Metal Company, W. W. Metal Product, and Ward-Davis, Inc., according to the Texarkana Chamber of Commerce.

Texarkana is a major transportation hub being centrally located in between Dallas-Ft. Worth, Little Rock-North Little Rock, Shreveport-Bossier City, Northwest Arkansas, and Houston.

Coming to Texarkana will be the new four year campus of Texas A&M at Texarkana and Southern Arkansas University Tech-Texarkana.

In the works now is future I-49 connecting from Shreveport, LA to Kansas City, MO, and a part of the Trans-Texas Corridor which will connect Texarkana to the future I-69 connecting Mexico to Canada.

Texarkana is the fastest growing city in Northeast Texas and in southern Arkansas. Texarkana, AR is one of 3 cities south of the Little Rock area growing in southern Arkansas, (the other two are Hot Springs and Magnolia).

Geography

Texarkana consists of two separate municipal designations:
*Texarkana, Arkansas, the county seat of Miller County, Arkansas
*Texarkana, Texas, located in Bowie County, TexasThe boulevard State Line Avenue follows the Texas-Arkansas state line throughout much of Texarkana. The two "sides" of Texarkana are separate only from a political standpoint. Thousands of locals actually live in one state and work in the other.

Owing to its divided political nature, Texarkana has two mayors and two sets of city officials; however, the two sides share a federal building, courthouse, jail, post office, labor office, chamber of commerce, water utility, and several other offices.

Roads

Texarkana is on Interstate 30, located close to halfway between Dallas, Texas, and Little Rock, Arkansas. Other major routes in Texarkana include:
*U.S. Route 59
*U.S. Route 67
*U.S. Route 71
*U.S. Route 82
*The Loop (consisting of US 59, as well as Texas State Highway Loop 151 and Arkansas Highway 245)

Local lore

Owing perhaps to its nature as a divided city and its remoteness from large urban areas, Texarkana has long been known as a hotbed for ghost stories, mysteries, and other colorful local lore.

The Phantom Killer

In 1946, Texarkana was the site of one of America's first widely-publicized serial murders, in which five people were killed and several others injured by an unknown assailant. Dubbed the "Texarkana Moonlight Murders" by news media, the violence focused on couples occupying popular "make-out" spots in and around the town, such as back roads and "lovers' lanes". The only description of the killer was that he carried a handgun and wore a mask. The case was never solved and the spree ended with no suspects arrested.

A man by the name of Yuell Lee Swinney, who was 29 at the time, was arrested but released. He was later released from prison in 1974 after serving 28 years for the theft of a car and other crimes, but he was never convicted of any murders. He had been implicated by his wife who claimed she was present when he had committed the murders, yet her accounts of the incidents varied over several tellings. Swinney himself denied having any involvement--a denial he maintained until his death in 1993 at age 76 in a prison hospital (where he had been held for counterfeiting and other crimes). Many believe nevertheless that he was the murderer, including several of his prison inmates who claimed Swinney had confessed to themFact|date=February 2007. His sister, Mildred Swinney-Sones, also believed he had committed the murders.Fact|date=June 2008. These events inspired the film "The Town That Dreaded Sundown", released in 1977, written and directed by Charles B. Pierce, and starring Ben Johnson, Dawn Wells, and Pierce himself. Some of the facts of the original case were fictionalized or altered for the film, including victims' names. In recent years, most area police and sheriffs' records of the case were discovered by investigative journalists to be mysteriously missing. No active files of the cases are currently being maintained by area law-enforcement agencies. Some locals believe that the Phantom Killer died long ago; some claim that he was a member of the local upper class aristocracy, which collaborated to keep his identity quiet to avoid scandal. Local lore maintains that he was more a supernatural force than a human being, and that he will return one day to resume his bloody deedsFact|date=February 2007. Technically the case is still open, though as of 2006 it is considered cold. If the killer is still alive, considering when the crimes took place, he would likely have been born circa 1928 at the latest, which means he could still be living today (2008).

wamp Monster

The swampy terrain of Boggy Creek, near Fouke, Arkansas, a small Miller County town southeast of Texarkana, is the reputed home of an anthropoid monster similar in appearance and behavior to the Pacific Northwest's Bigfoot and Sasquatch, and to the Skunk Ape of Florida legend. A film dramatizing these stories, entitled "The Legend of Boggy Creek", was released in 1972. Two sequels, "Return to Boggy Creek" (1977) and "The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II" (1985) (AKA Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues; the "official" sequel made by the original film's director, Charles B. Pierce) followed with very little commercial success (although "The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II" was featured in the tenth season of "Mystery Science Theater 3000").

Texarkana in popular culture

Movies

*"Walk the Line"
*"2 Fast 2 Furious"
*"Smokey and the Bandit"
*"The Town That Dreaded Sundown"
*"The Legend of Boggy Creek"
*"Return to Boggy Creek"
*"The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II"
*"American Psycho"
*"One False Move" by Billy Bob Thornton
*"A Perfect World" starring Kevin Costner

Operas

*"Treemonisha" by Scott Joplin

ongs

*"A Day In TK by The Texarkana All Stars
*"TK N****" by R.O.D.
*"All My Ex's Live in Texas" by George Strait
*"Gimme Gimme Good Lovin"' by Crazy Elephant
*"Texarkana" by R.E.M
*"Texarkana" by Beck
*"Texarkana" by Coby Carlucci
*"Texarkana Moonlight" by The Bad Detectives
*"Texarkana To Panama City" by Lee Rocker
*"Texarkana State of Mind" by Bob Delevante
*"Texarkana Baby" by Eddie Arnold
*"Blue Tail Fly" by Leadbelly
*"Cotton Fields" by Leadbelly; later covered by many other artists
*"Call It What You Want" by Tesla
*"Ride My Llama" by Neil Young
*"Fingernails" by Joe Ely
*"I've Been Everywhere" by Johnny Cash
*"East Bound and Down" by Jerry Reed and later covered by the Supersuckers
*"Red Bull of Juarez" by Frodus
*"Goddamn Lonely Love" by Drive-By Truckers
*"Immortal" by Clutch (band)
*"Texarkana(Thats Where I Stay)" by Devonte White aka Wyte Boi

Books

*"A Canticle for Leibowitz"
*"Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman (1997)
*"Bridged by Love"

Notable people from Texarkana

*Scott Joplin (childhood home)
*Joshua Logan, Broadway & Film director, writer, & lyricist. Co-wrote "South Pacific"
*Conlon Nancarrow, composer
*Ross Perot
*Prudence Mackintosh, writer
*David Crowder, Christian Contemporary musician
*Eddie Matthews, Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player
*Parnelli Jones, race car driver
*John Keener Wadley, oil executive, philanthropist
*Rod Smith, Denver Broncos-wide receiver
*Nathan Vasher, Chicago Bears-defensive back
*Craig Monroe, Minnesota Twins-outfielder
*Eric Warfield, Kansas City Chiefs
*Mike Huckabee (Spent approx. 10 years in Texarkana as a pastor)
*Bill Rogers, Golfer, winner of 1981 British Open
*Bob Moose, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher
*Miller Barber, professional golfer
*Ryan Mallett, University of Arkansas Quarterback
*Jeff Keith, born in Texarkana, AR, Lead Vocals for the rock band Tesla
*Will Middlebrooks, A member of the Boston Red Sox organization

References

* Metropolitan statistical areas and metropolitan divisions defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, December 2003 [http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/metro-city/0312msa.txt]
* [http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_event=Search&geo_id=16000US0568810&_geoContext=01000US%7C04000US05%7C16000US0568810&_street=&_county=Texarkana&_cityTown=Texarkana&_state=04000US48&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=geoSelect&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=160&_submenuId=factsheet_1&ds_name=DEC_2000_SAFF&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=null%3Anull&_keyword=&_industry=/ Texarkana, Texas fact sheet from the U.S. Census Bureau]
* [http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_event=Search&geo_id=&_geoContext=&_street=&_county=Texarkana&_cityTown=Texarkana&_state=04000US05&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&pctxt=fph&pgsl=010/ Texarkana, Arkansas fact sheet from the U.S. Census Bureau]
* [http://texarkana.wliinc2.com/com-profile2.pdf Texarkana Chamber of Commerce 2006-2007 Community Profile (in PDF format)]

External links

* [http://www.txkusa.org/ TxkUSA.org, official web site for Texarkana, USA]
* [http://www.texarkana.org/ Texarkana Chamber of Commerce]
* [http://rateTexarkana.com/ RateTexarkana.com]
* [http://www.texarkanasymphony.org/ Texarkana Symphony Orchestra]