The name "Gilmer" or "Gillmer" rings a bell, but I've been gone, other than an occasional visit, from the "Golden Triangle" area for well over 50 years.

My grandfather-- son of 1st Sgt Jesse K. DuBose, Co. K., Border Texas Cavalry (Bourland's Regt), CSA-- also named Jesse, settled in Orange in the early 1900s. He was born in Hunt Co., in 1863, and later became involved in building shallow draft steamboats on the upper Sabine River, having at one time a shipyard in the Logansport, LA area. He worked in one of the ship yards in Orange during WWI using his skills as a shipwright to build wooden hulled mine sweepers for the Royal Navy, and later US Navy after 1917. In theory (never heard whether it worked in practice!!) the wooden hulls negated the Imperial German Navy's magnetic mines which they had liberally sown in the English Channel between 1914 and 1918.

He, Jesse, was killed in a shipyard accident in 1920. My dad went to Port Arthur to live with a sister and worked at the old Gulf Refinery for about 40 years before retiring in the early 1960s.

I can remember him taking me down to Sabine Pass and showing me the remains of the boiler/engine of the USS Clifton and also pointing out a large, grassy mound that was the site of the Confederat fort. So I was hooked on the WBTS before I started kindergarten!