Waskom: Where Texas Ends and the Railroad Made a Name
Near Shreveport, Texas
Waskom is the last Texas town before the Louisiana line on Interstate Twenty, and its name is pure railroad history. The community started around eighteen fifty as Powell Town, probably named for Jonathan Powell, who held a land grant here. It kept a post office as Powellton for more than two decades.
Then the Southern Pacific Railroad pushed through, and in eighteen seventy-two the station was renamed Waskom Station to honor J. M. Waskom, a director of the railroad who had been instrumental in routing the line through this corner of Harrison County.
By eighteen eighty-one the Station was dropped and just Waskom remained. Today the town sits at the crossing of Interstate Twenty and United States Highway Eighty, a reminder that roads and rails have always converged at this Louisiana border crossing.
