Redwater, TX

Redwater is a Bowie County city about twelve miles southwest of Texarkana. The community grew around a sawmill operated by Daniels and Spence in the 1870s and was first called Ingersoll. A branch of the St. Louis Southwestern, or Cotton Belt, Railway reached the settlement later in that decade. Redwater took its present name from the reddish water of local springs and wells, and a town vote made the name official in 1894. U.S. 67 and FM 991 meet at the city's historic marker, while the surrounding roads run through the timber and farm country of southeastern Bowie County.

World War II changed the regional map when the Red River Army Ammunition Plant and Red River Army Depot were built just north of town in 1941. The depot began with ammunition storage and expanded into supply storage and tank repair; it now occupies a large industrial and military tract in Bowie County. Redwater Independent School District serves the city, and the municipality operates its own water utility. The town's story is easy to read in layers: sawmills and rail first, then the Army installations, with Texarkana and the Red River corridor shaping the larger setting.