Preston, also known as Preston Bend, is an unincorporated community and census-designated place located on the Red River in Grayson County, Texas, United States. It grew in the 19th century at the intersection of several military and trade roads and was an important crossing on the Shawnee cattle trail. Preston lost prominence after the MK&T railroad bypassed the town to the east, leading to a decline in traveler and cattle drive traffic. Much of its former town site is submerged beneath the waters of Lake Texoma. Its population was 2,096 as of the 2010 census.
History
Early settlement
Before European settlement, the general area of Preston had been occupied by the Caddo people, with the Comanche and Kiowa farther to the west. One of the first American settlers in the area was John Hart, who cultivated land at the bend in the Red River possibly before 1826. He left the area just after 1830 after being attacked by Indians during a trapping expedition on the Washita River.
During the 1830s, the United States relocated the Five Civilized Tribes from the Southeastern United States to the Indian Territory, on the north side of the Red River. As the first official United States expedition to the area, the Dodge-Leavenworth Expedition explored the region in 1834. Above Preston on the Red River Leavenworth Camp, situated just west of the mouth of the Washita River, the area was a base for this expedition. George Catlin made some of his famous Indian paintings from this camp.
In the fall of 1838, John Hart returned to the Washita Bend area with two partners. They cleared and fenced and built three cabins. In 1838, the partnership dissolved and Hart took sole possession of the land. He leased the land to a tenant.
Holland Coffee and the trading post
Holland Coffee and Silas Cheek Colville created Coffee, Colville, and Company to establish a trading post on the Red River. After establishing three trading posts upstream, they established one in the Washita Bend. They occupied the area of Washita Bend after John Hart's tenant was killed by Indians. Hart later sued Coffee for the land, but lost. In 1837, Holland Coffee had been elected to the Texas Legislature and negotiated a peace treaty between the Republic of Texas and the Waco, Tawakoni, Kichai, and Towash (Pawnee) peoples on September 2, 1838, at a Shawnee village near the mouth of the Washita River.
The town of Preston grew up around the trading post established by Coffee and Colville.
The Trading Post of Holland Coffee site received a historic marker in 1936.
Roads and trails
Preston developed at the junction between the Indian Territory's Texas Road, leading north to Missouri, and what became the Preston Road, leading south farther into Texas. Roughly following a much older trail used by Native Americans for centuries, in 1840–1841, Colonel William Gordon Cooke created the military road from Coffee's trading house on the Red River to Austin. The Preston Road was originally long, from Preston to the Trinity River at Dallas.
Fort Preston
The Republic of Texas commissioned Colonel Cooke to make a supply post in the area, known as Fort Preston after Captain William Gilwater Preston, a member of the military road expedition of 1840–1841. Some doubt remains that the town was named after him, and the origin of the name of the town is obscure. In 1840, Cooke was in charge of a company of men there. Coffee and other settlers were thinking about leaving the area before Cooke arrived. The village around Fort Preston grew up to be known as Preston, Texas. Fort Preston was established 80 yards west of the eastern bend in the river, on a bluff about above the river. Some of the buildings at Fort Preston were made of bricks made in the area.
Later, the United States Army operated a depot to supply the Fifth Infantry from here. The Army depot operated from 1851 to 1853. The Preston Supply Depot was under the command of Lt. Thomas C. English and later by Bvt. Maj. W. F. Wood. Albert Sidney Johnston and the Second Cavalry came through Preston in 1855.
Glen Eden
When Holland Coffee married Sophia Suttonfield Aughinbaugh in 1839, they resided at his trading post in a square log stockade on the Red River. The stockade enclosed several huts and cabins. In 1843, Coffee began building Glen Eden as a proper house for his wife, west of his trading post. It was completed in 1845. Holland Coffee was killed on October 1, 1846. Sophia later married several more times, and Glen Eden became the most famous residence in the area.