Las Sabinas, Volume 14, Number 1, January 1988 Page: 5
72 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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LAS SABINAS - THE CYPRESSES
The swamp cypress of this area, one of the timber
evergreen conifers (Taxodium distichum), is that strange
looking, but beautiful, buttressed tree with those up-
ward growths from its roots called knees. These trees
sometimes reach a height of eighty feet or more.1
For countless years, the beauty of these cypresses
was known only to the Indian tribes - the Attacapa, the
Anadarko, the Caddo and others - who, in their fleet
pirogues, used present-day Texas' easternmost river and
its tributaries as their highways.2
Then came the Spanish, who, in their musical lang-
uage, called this stream which divided their new world
territories from those of the French, Rio de Sabinas,
from las sabias, the cypresses, growing along its banks.
This designation was corrupted by the later arrivi_ g
French and English speaking peoples into "Sabine" by
which name we know this waterway today.3
Thus, las sabinas, the cypresses, have given their
name to a mighty river, an important area and this
publication.
Loren LeBlanc
1. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica; Macropaedia,
Vol. 5 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Chichago, 1973, p. 1.
2. White, Edna McDaniel, East Texas Riverboat Era and
Its Decline, LaBelle Printing & Engraving Co., Beaumont, 1967,
p. 2.
3. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. XXXIV
(July 1935 to April 1936), The Texas Historical Association,
Austin, 1936.
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Orange County Historical Society (Tex.). Las Sabinas, Volume 14, Number 1, January 1988, periodical, January 1988; Orange, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth312864/m1/5/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Orange County Historical Society.