Only anecdotal evidence of the song in Canada before "The Bright Mohawk Valley" was written in the 1890s by James J. Kerrigan.

The song most likely concerns the Red River in Texas-Arkansas-Louisiana and the rich farmlands along it. Settlement expanded rapidly in the 1860s, and included the Valley all the way into Louisiana. It forms the border between much of north Texas
and Oklahoma.

John Clement Reed (Handbook of Texas), important in Texas history, farmed in the Red River Valley in Texas in 1836, and was one of the first.