In Red River Dispute, "A Cloud Over This Land"
Decades after Tommy Henderson first asked the federal government to return land in Texas along the Red River that his family had tended since the early days of the Civil War, a funny thing happened: The feds finally obliged.
On the steps of the Clay County courthouse in late July, a U.S. Bureau of Land Management official proudly handed over — with firm handshakes, signatures and all — about 95 acres that the feds had called their own.
“You’ve been waiting a long time for this day, which is the patenting of your land, your private land,” said Steve Tryon, an agency field manager, according to a Texas Farm Bureau video recording of the meeting.
Boy, did Henderson wait. For nearly half his 62 years, his frustrating chapter went unresolved in the squabble-filled history of the Red River, the changing path of which has blurred property lines for at least a century.
Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2015/11/01/red-river-reunion-95-acres-court-took/
