Bradley Prairie is the name of a
prairie in Southwest
Angelina County, Texas, in the
United States. It is located in the vicinity of the town of
Burke, Texas
Burke is a city in southwestern Angelina County, Texas, Angelina County, Texas, United States. The population was 737 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census.
History
Burke was founded in 1881 when construction of the History_of_the_Southe ...
.
Bradley Prairie was named for Tom Bradley, a native of
San Augustine, Texas
San Augustine is the county seat city of San Augustine County, Texas, in East Texas, United States. The population was at the 2020 census.
History
The first European settlement in the area began in 1717 with the establishment of Mission Nuestra ...
, who built a trading post there in 1835 to trade among the Muscogee (
Creek people), Biloxi,
Alabama (people),and
Coushatta on the nearby
Neches River
The Neches River () begins in Van Zandt County west of Rhine Lake and flows for through the piney woods of east Texas, defining the boundaries of 14 counties on its way to its mouth on Sabine Lake near the Rainbow Bridge. Two major reservoirs, ...
and the
Shawnee in the southeastern part of the county. All these tribes were emigrants from other parts of the country who occupied land formerly held by the
Caddo
The Caddo people comprise the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Binger, Oklahoma. They speak the Caddo language.
The Caddo Confederacy was a network of Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, wh ...
, who had been wiped out three centuries earlier by
smallpox borne by European explorers.
A branch of the Opelousas Cattle Trail connecting
Opelousas, Louisiana and
Crockett, Texas passed just south of Burke, and cattle ranching was the primary industry in the area in the middle 19th Century. However, after the
American Civil War, Bradley Prairie's fertile soil attracted farmers mainly from the devastated Deep South. When the Houston, East and West Texas Railroad arrived and the town of Burke was founded in 1881 on the western edge of Bradley Prairie, the area became an important cotton raising area. With the founding of
Lufkin, Texas and
Diboll, Texas to serve the emerging lumber industry, Bradley Prairie and Burke declined in importance. In 1951 the Angelina County Airport was located at Burke in the midst of Bradley Prairie.
After Burke was founded, the name Bradley Prairie fell into disuse and is now largely forgotten.
Sources
#McLean, Malcolm, ''Papers Concerning Robertson's Colony In Texas'', Volume VIII, pages 192–195.
#Handbook of Texas Online, ''Burke, Texas''.
{{Coord, 31.2369, -94.7319, display=title
Geography of Angelina County, Texas
Grasslands of Texas