The toll bridge was to go from Durant, Oklahoma to Denison, TX, along what is now US 75/US 69. However, a dispute between the two states nearly created another Border War.
In 1853, the Chickasaw Nation gave Colbert permission to operate a ferry across the Red River. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, five years later, this location became Indian Territory's last stop for the north-south run of the Butterfield Overland Mail. Colbert maintained the road and transported the stage and passengers across the river for free.
His house served as the station, as he also provided food for travelers. Near the ferry, Colbert later built a large mansion named Riverside. During the Civil War Confederate forces often used the ferries.
After the war ended, the enterprise profited from cattle drives that originated in Texas. The townsite of Colbert sprang up around this operation. In 1872, the ferry business charged one dollar for a two-horse wagon, one dollar and twenty-five cents for a four-horse wagon, one dollar and fifty cents for six-horse wagon, twenty-five cents for a man and a horse, and ten cents a head for cattle or horses. Travelers had to pay to cross the river, whether or not they used the boats. Two hundred yards from the landing, on the Texas side, stood a store named the "first and last chance," selling among other things whiskey, which was banned in Indian Territory. In 1872 the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway (MK&T or KATY) built a company bridge across the Red River, absorbing some of the ferry's business. In 1874, Colbert gained a federal charter to build his own toll bridge. Almost a year later a flood destroyed both the MK&T bridge and the wagon bridge, and the boats were put back in action. Colbert later sold his charter to the Red River Bridge Company, which he helped organize, and he served as its first president. In 1892 this company rebuilt the structure. Again in 1908 a flood destroyed it (like other bridges along the river including the Airline Bridge outside of Illinois Bend, TX; below is its replacement, the Taovayas Indian Bridge),
and the organization quickly erected another bridge In 1931, he argued that Texas did not buy out its rights to the area while obtaining a federal injunction to prevent the opening of a new public bridge Colbert built. Oklahoma's Governor Alfalfa Bill Murray ordered the National Guard to come down while the head of the Lone Star State, Ross Sterling, called the Texas Rangers.
A temporary injunction was issued on July 10, 1931, and Sterling ordered barricades erected across the Texas side of the new bridge. However, on July 16, Murray opened the bridge by executive order, stating that Oklahoma's part of the bridge ran lengthwise north and south across the Red River and, according to the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), "that Oklahoma held title to both sides of the river from the Louisiana Purchase treaty of 1803, and that the state of Oklahoma was not named in the injunction." Sterling replied, "He (Murray) is in his own bailiwick."
Oklahoma highway crews crossed the bridge and demolished the barricades. Governor Sterling responded by ordering a detachment of three Texas Rangers, accompanied by Adjutant General William Warren Sterling and Captain Tom Hickman, to rebuild the barricades and protect Texas Highway Department employees charged with enforcing the injunction. A day after the Rangers arrived, on July 17, Murray ordered Oklahoma highway crews to tear up the northern approaches to the still-operating toll bridge causing traffic to stop.
On July 20 and 21 mass meetings demanding the opening of the free bridge were held in Sherman and Denison, and resolutions to this effect were forwarded to Austin. On July 23 the Texas legislature, which was meeting in a special session, passed a bill granting the Red River Bridge Company permission to sue the state in order to recover the sum claimed in the injunction. The bridge company then joined the state in requesting the court to dissolve the injunction, which it did on July 25. On that day the free bridge was opened to traffic and the rangers were withdrawn.
Meanwhile, a federal district court in Muskogee, Oklahoma, acting on a petition from the toll-bridge company, had on July 24 enjoined Governor Murray from blocking the northern approaches to the toll bridge.
Murray, according to the THSA, acting several hours before the injunction was actually issued, declared martial law in a narrow strip of territory along the northern approaches to both bridges and then argued that this act placed him, as commander of the Oklahoma National Guard, above the federal court's jurisdiction. "I cannot join you in attempting to make a Federal court injunction in operative," the governor said.
An Oklahoma guard unit was ordered to the bridge, and Murray, armed with an antique revolver, made a personal appearance at the bridge. No attempt was made to enforce the Oklahoma injunction, but on July 24, with the free bridge open, Murray directed the guardsmen to permit anyone who so desired to cross the toll bridge. Three days later, Murray announced that he had learned of an attempt to close the free bridge permanently, and he extended the martial-law zone to the Oklahoma boundary marker on the south bank of the Red River. Oklahoma guardsmen were stationed at both ends of the free bridge, and Texas papers spoke of an "invasion." Finally, on August 6, 1931, the Texas injunction was permanently dissolved, the Oklahoma guardsmen were withdrawn to enforce martial law in the Oklahoma oilfields, and the bridge controversy was laid to rest. The bridge was dynamited on December 6, 1995 and replaced by a new bridge that houses US 75/US 69 traffic.
Sources:
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/c/co018.html
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mgr02
http://www.newspapers.com/image/49756983/?terms=Red+River+Bridge+Governor+Murray+Texas+Rangers
http://www.newspapers.com/image/30212604&terms=Red+River+Bridge+Governor+Murray+Texas+Rangers/
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