Forget school buses… These children had to take a boat.
Shared by Jerry Lee, who lived near the Sabine River before the river was dammed in the 1960s to create Toledo Bend Lake. He writes, “When the lake was built we lived in the area where Dog Trot Marina used to be my uncle Buster Lee owned it. The lake actually came up so fast that they did not have time to build a road into where we lived, so my brother and I had to go half way to school in a boat that winter.”
The caption written under the photo that was published in The Sabine Index, late 1960s, read, “William Lee, right, of Ward 3 is shown boating his children to meet the school bus early Monday morning in 20 degree weather because the Sabine River Authority has failed to build an access road after waters of Toledo Bend flooded the Tommy Lee Road. Shown in the boat are Jerry Wayne Lee, first grader, and Charles William Lee, third grader. Lee has been boating his children to school for about three weeks and has to take them one quarter of a mile. W. A. Williams, a member of the SRA Board, said construction on the new road was held up because right-of-way needed to be obtained, but after that it has been about six weeks and nothing has been done toward building the road.”