Two months after the Battle of the Alamo, another massacre took place on the Texas frontier. On May 19, 1836, hundreds of Native Americans ambushed Fort Parker near present day Mexia, Texas. In 1833, a group of Predestinarian Baptists left Illinois in twenty-five ox-drawn wagons. Many members of this group, including Elder John Parker and his family, settled near the Navasota River in East Texas. Upon arrival, the Parker men began constructing "Parker's Fort" out of fifteen-foot tall split cedars.
Three years later, on that fateful morning, hundreds of Comanche and Kiowa approached the fort waving a white flag. The Comanche stabbed Elder Parker’s son Benjamin when he approached the group. The Comanche and Kiowa charged the fort and killed four more men, wounded three women, and took five women and children captive. Elder Parker’s son, Daniel wrote of the massacre in the family Bible, which is currently on display in the Elkhart State Bank in Elkhart, Texas. Among those taken captive was a nine-year-old girl, Cynthia Ann Parker. James Parker, Cynthia’s uncle, unsuccessfully petitioned Sam Houston to send troops to recover the captives several times.
Cynthia remained with the Comanche for twenty-four years. In 1860, Captain Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross led the Texas Rangers in a surprise attack against the Comanche in the Battle of Pease River where he discovered and recaptured Cynthia. Sul Ross would later become Governor of Texas and President of Texas A&M University.
Later, the area became Springfield, Texas, a dusty frontier town. Springfield was Limestone County's first county seat in 1847. The only visible reminder of Springfield that remains is a small cemetery found inside of Fort Parker State Park. Inside the cemetery is the grave of a veteran of the American Revolution.
In 1935, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built a camp in the area. Fort Parker CCC Camp housed Company 3807. The company was a segregated unit. Most of these men were sons of black Texas sharecroppers. As part of the Texas Centennial of 1936, Company 3807 reconstructed Fort Parker as closely to the original as possible. This reconstructed fort lies just over two miles outside of Fort Parker State Park, which Company 3807 also built. Former Texas Governor Pat Neff, who started the state parks effort in the 1920s, dedicated Fort Parker State Park in May 1941, and declared it open to the public. Sadly, after completing the work there, the men of Company 3807 could not visit the park. There was a statewide policy of banning all blacks from state parks in Texas until the 1960s.
Fort Parker State Park is a rare location that combines recreation and conservation with history and heritage. Fort Parker and Fort Parker State Park represent American frontier life, Native American history, African American history, and the history of the Great Depression and the New Deal.
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]]>Present-day Mission Tejas State Park encompasses 660 acres of rolling hills and forest lands in Weches, Texas. Nestled in the beautiful Piney Woods of Houston County, the park offers both a rich historical landscape and a scenic location for picnicking and hiking.
The park site was originally home to Mission San Fransisco de los Tejas, the first Spanish mission in the province of Texas. In 1690, Catholic missionaries from Spain began settling the region in hopes of Christianizing the local Nabedache Indians and establishing a buffer against France’s colony in Louisiana. The original mission established by these Franciscan priests was located on San Pedro Creek, near the Neches River. Relations between the Spanish settlers and Native Americans were civil and even beneficial for the first few years of contact. After three years, however, the Native Americans began to blame the Spaniards for diseases then decimating their people. As a result, the missionaries decided to evacuate the settlement and burned the mission before they left at the end of the seventeenth century. East Texas historian Bob Bowman notes interestingly that if the “original mission were still standing today, few buildings could challenge it as Texas’s oldest landmark. Even the Alamo wasn’t built until 1718.”
Throughout the first few decades of the eighteenth century, the mission was revived and abandoned several times, but it was finally relocated to the San Antonio area in 1731. There, the mission was renamed San Fransisco de la Espada, and parts of it remain today.
Almost two centuries later, as Texans prepared for the state's centennial celebration, the Civilian Conservation Corps was tasked with the construction of a park to commemorate Mission San Francisco de los Tejas.
The Civilian Conservation Corps was part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program and was officially established in 1933. Young men across the country who were selected for employment in the Corps were put to work digging ditches, repairing building, building parks, constructing schools, and completing dozens of other tasks. The men in the CCC were paid an average of $30 a month and were able to use the majority of their earnings to support their families back home.
CCC Company 888 was assigned to the Mission Tejas park project. One of the most noteworthy accomplishments of the men working on the park was the construction of a replica version of the original Spanish Mission from 1690. The log structure, with double-hung windows and a petrified wood fireplace, serves as a commemorative replica rather than a true historical reconstruction.
In 1957, the federal government transferred the Mission Tejas site to the Texas State Parks Board, which renamed it Mission Tejas State Park. Since that shift in oversight, other features have been added to the park, including the popular Rice Family Log Home. Originally built in 1828 and restored in 1974, the home of Joseph Rice, Sr., is one of the oldest structures in Houston County. The home served as a stopover for immigrants, adventurers, and local residents traveling the Old San Antonio Road across Texas, and today it offers visitors a glimpse back into the nineteenth century.
Together, the reconstructed Spanish mission, the restored Rice Log Home, and the natural offerings of the area make Mission Tejas State Park a wonderful place to visit and learn about the past.
]]>Located in Fanning County northeast of Dallas, Texas, Bonham State Park consists of 261 acres in the northern region of the Blackland Prairie. The park includes a sixty-five-acre lake, rolling hills, and scenic woodlands. It has been in operation for more than 75 years and provides visitors with a variety of activities and sightseeing opportunities.
Commissioned in 1933, the park was built in the home county of the powerful Democratic congressman, Sam Rayburn. After the land for the park was donated to the National Park Service by the City of Bonham, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) took over the day-to-day construction and landscaping at the site. Young men between the ages of 18 and 25 signed up for the CCC, and they received work assignments, housing, and $30 per month for their labor. This public works project was a major feature of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, which sought to combat the ravages of the Great Depression by helping people help themselves.
The men of CCC Company 894 implemented the plans of architects Joe C. Lair and William Caldwell that incorporated local natural resources like limestone and red cedar. The men used these resources to landscape the rocky terrain and to establish erosion control measures around the park. They also constructed the earthen dam that set off a new sixty-five-acre, man-made lake. This new water feature and the rustic buildings and landscaping that the CCC put in place remain central to the park today and allow visitors to get a glimpse into the park’s 75 year history.
]]>Oscar De Priest was the first black congressman from Illinois. In 1933, De Priest introduced an amendment to ban racial discrimination in the new Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Throughout the history of the CCC, black enrollment was capped at ten percent. This was to match the roughly ten percent of black Americans identified in the 1930 census. However, by 1934, only six percent of all CCC enrollees were black. Moreover, during the Great Depression, a much higher overall percentage of blacks were eligible for relief programs than whites. Due to the enrollment caps and discrimination, thousands of black Americans were turned away from the CCC.
The Texas Rehabilitation and Relief Commission (TRRC) recruited and screened enrollees for the CCC in Texas. The TRRC verified each applicant's economic need and physical health. Then, the County Board of Welfare and Employment accepted or rejected each applicant. Enrollees were assigned to any CCC camp within the district, except black recruits who were always assigned to CCC camps within their home state.
Roughly 250,000 young black men served in the CCC and most worked in segregated companies. The director of the CCC, Robert Fechner, claimed that the segregated CCC camps were not discriminatory as they provided the same pay, same housing, same food, and the same type of work as the all-white camps. Fechner even argued that the black recruits preferred to be in all black camps. Roughly ten percent of black recruits were stationed in integrated camps. One of these rare integrated camps was the CCC Camp in Pineland, Texas.
The small town of Pineland was originally known as John Adams' Mill and was centered around timber operations. Lumber has remained the primary industry of the area. Pineland is located on the western edge of the Sabine National Forest and east of Angelina National Forest.
In the 1930s, two CCC camps were created in Sabine County: one near Pineland and one near Milam. The CCC Camp in Pineland was established on June 14, 1933. Company 893, stationed in Pineland, helped the Texas Forest Service reforest the area by planting pine seedlings. These men also built roads and watchtowers and constructed the Red Hills Lake Recreation area in Sabine National Forest. The Red Hills Lake Recreation area is still enjoyed by thousands of visitors every year.
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]]>Daingerfield State Park in East Texas covers an impressive 500 square acres of land, including an 80-acre man-made lake. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) completed construction of the park in 1939 and the public has enjoyed it ever since.
Today, the park lies in the heart of Morris County, near Texarkana. Although public history of the park is sparse, documents and reports on the CCC's work provides a brief picture of how and why the park was commissioned. Georgia Anna Chambers Connor is credited with donating several hundred acres in the early 1930s so the park could be established.
Soon after the property became available, two units from the CCC began clearing roads, building cabins and other facilities, and excavating land to create a state park and lake. The design and implementation began in 1935 and was finished at the end of the decade. CCC Company 1801, an all-black unit, and Company 2891, an all-white unit, both worked to complete the project. Corpsmen working on the project, and on projects across the country, were paid $30 per month for their services and with their food and most other expenses covered, they were able to send money back to their families in need. President Franklin D. Roosevelt commissioned the CCC, a few years before this park's construction, with the intent to employ young men across the nation who had found themselves out of work as the Great Depression was in full swing.
Architect J. Reginald Gunn and landscape architect Calvert Swing Winsborough were largely in charge of the park's design and layout. Many of the cabins and structures built by the CCC employed the National Park Service style of design which included local timber and stone masonry that blended into the natural environment.
Today the Daingerfield State Park offers an impressive amount of activities and sites for visitors to enjoy. Within the confines of the park one finds hiking trails, canoes, cabins, camp sites, an array of wildlife and also a beautiful natural scenery. In the springtime, the park turns a delightful red and gold as the sweetgum, oak, and maple trees bloom. Thanks to the work of the CCC, the park continues to be a much-needed source of beauty and relaxation.
]]>Caddo Lake State Park is situated in the beautiful region of East Texas, near the Texas-Louisiana border. The park has been in operation for nearly 75 years, serving guests with its campgrounds, hiking trails, and cabins, as well as many other natural attractions.
The park's rich history includes the presence of the Caddo Indians of the 18th and 19th centuries, although it is believed that people have inhabited this East Texas area for nearly 12,000 years. When the Caddos first arrived, they continued their semi-nomadic style of hunting and gathering. With the vast wetlands and an expansive forest, the Caddos were able to hunt, fish, and develop a farming system. Throughout the 19th century the Caddo Indians were gradually driven away from the area as some of Texas's first families began settling the area. Among these first Texans was T.J. Taylor, who many Americans recognize as the father of Lady Bird Johnson, President Lyndon Johnson's wife.
In the early 1930s, Taylor, with other local businessmen and groups, donated land to the state of Texas with the intent to build a state park on its grounds. Caddo Lake State Park, among other reasons, is noteworthy for being the first Texas state park to be supervised by National Park Service (NPS). With guidance from NPS, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) completed the project within four years after it was commissioned in 1933.
CCC Companies 889 and 857 were responsible for most of the park’s construction and eventual completion. These and other CCC companies were part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal initiative begun during the interwar period of the 1930s. Roosevelt commissioned the CCC in 1933 with the intent to employ young men across the country. These young men between the ages of 17 and 25 were put to work in manual labor jobs across the country, building bridges, schools, parks, and other public improvements. The majority of CCC workers earned an average of $30 per month and were expected to send most of that home to their families.
With NPS supervision and a crew of able-bodied CCC workers, construction on Caddo Lake State Park began in 1933. Company 889 started the initial phases of construction, working there until November 1933. With a year between building projects, Company 857 replaced Company 889 and started work on the park in October 1934. The teams built cabins, shelters, roads and entrances based on NPS designs that incorporated natural materials harvested from the parkland. Caddo Lake State Park was completed in 1937 and the deed given to the State Park Board.
Today Caddo Lake State Park boasts several miles of hiking trails, public facilities, cabins, and an impressive array of wildlife. Park goers today can still enjoy the natural architecture and park attractions built by CCC.
]]>Slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865, but for many the plantation was merely replaced by the chain gang. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many southern states participated in convict lease programs. Texas was no different. The state provided prisoners for cheap labor and used the income to help feed and house the convicts. Companies wanted the most amount of work for the least amount of money, and often convicts were overworked and abused. The prisoners lived in work camps and often worked in chain gangs. One such work camp, located near present day Maydelle was Camp Wright, which housed convict laborers from the Rusk Penitentiary.
The prisoners at Camp Wright built the Mewshaw State Sawmill in 1908 and cranked out 35,000 feet of East Texas lumber a day. Much of that wood was hauled on the newly-built railroad and used as as charcoal for the prison's iron foundry. However, the sawmill was destroyed by fire in 1912 and was never rebuilt, and then Rusk Penitentiary closed five years later.
In 1910, the village of Maydelle developed near the rail line west of Rusk. Then in 1933, a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp was established near Maydelle on the old Mewshaw camp site. Like sixteen other CCC camps, Maydelle was assigned to the Texas Forest Service. Company 883 was stationed here and assigned forest conservation projects. Maydelle CCC jobs included planting trees, clearing scrub brush, fighting fires, controlling pests, and digging ditches. The men constructed a variety of structures and land projects, from flood barriers and lakes to fences and lookout towers. By 1936, they had finished 132 miles of forest roads, 800 flood drains, 162 bridges, and 45 miles of telephone lines.
In an oral history interview conducted in 2008, Jane Purtle of the Cherokee County Historical Commission talked to two brothers, Rubien and Forrest Barrington, who both served in the CCC in Texas. Rubien worked in Maydelle, and Forrest worked in Jacksonville. The brothers remembered their time in the CCC as formative. They described the full-time work as hard, but enjoyable. The brothers cleared fields and built roads. To the Barrington boys, the CCC was their first taste of military life. Their camp also offered recreation and education opportunities. Rubien remembered basketball and baseball teams, and that every weekend they would drive to Jacksonville for a twenty-cent movie.
The Maydelle CCC camp was closed in 1937 due to budgetary constraints, but it made a lasting impact on the area.
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]]>During the 1930s, many farmers in East Texas noticed that their crop yields were steadily decreasing. Some of the problem was caused by the fact that farmers insisted on planting their crops in straight rows, producing the perfect environment for soil erosion. The fertile soil was simply washing away along with an estimated $400 million nationwide in crop loss. Meanwhile, in the nation’s capital, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was proposing a civilian conservation corps to combat high levels of unemployment. Among the corps’ responsibilities would be a new effort to prevent soil erosion.
In September of 1933, Hugh Hammond Bennett, an expert on soil conservation, became the head of the Soil Erosion Service (SES). Bennett saw an opportunity to use the manpower of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to provide erosion prevention help for individual farms across the nation. Bennett wished to show farmers everywhere the value of conservation techniques. By the end of 1934, there were over 160 CCC camps dedicated to soil erosion prevention. One such camp was the Lindale CCC Camp, housing Company 896.
CCC Company 896 participated in the Duck Creek Erosion Project in Lindale, Texas. The CCC enrollees constructed terraces, planted trees and shrubs, and built dams in efforts to reduce soil erosion in Smith County. Educating the local farmers was also a big part of the CCC efforts at Duck Creek. CCC enrollees taught local farmers how to use cover crops, contour plowing, strip cropping, and fertilizer to improve the quality of the soil. The CCC worked with farmers in a 25,000 acre area in Lindale and tried to implement individualized soil conservation plans for each farm.
Projects like the Duck Creek Soil Erosion Project created a lasting legacy of agricultural education and experience. The erosion prevention techniques were not new, but the large-scale approach of the CCC led to more awareness, education and utilization of these techniques. The Duck Creek Project was one of the first organized, scientific, soil erosion endeavors in the country. The project was so successful in conservation education, experimentation and demonstration, that the Duck Creek area evolved into a training ground for many in the field: foresters, biologists, surveyors, agronomists, economists and engineers.
]]>Davy Crockett may not have killed a bear at three years old as he claimed, but he still was the “King of the Wild Frontier.” Therefore, it is not surprising that in 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt named a new national forest after the legendary frontiersman who died fighting at the Battle of the Alamo. The newly-minted Davy Crockett National Forest offered federal protection to a rich and timbered landscape that needed conservation if it was to survive.
The story of the Davy Crockett National Forest begins properly with Texas settler, J.H. Ratcliff who owned an operated a small sawmill in the area at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1901, Ratcliff sold that sawmill to the Central Coal and Coke Company (known as the Four C). The town of Ratcliff was then established around the Four C Milling operation. Due to tensions between the lumber company and local merchants, however, the company decided to create a new mill outside of Ratcliff in what would become the town of Kennard. This site soon became the second largest sawmill in the nation, cranking out 300,000 board feet a day by 1902. Yet, the production came at a cost. By the early 1930s, the timber industry had depleted the forests in East Texas, and people were worried about the regional economy and jobs.
In 1933, as part of federal conservation efforts, the Texas legislature authorized the acquisition of much of this cut-over timberland for the United States national forest system. As one of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) helped reforest much of the land that the timber companies had decimated. CCC Camp P-58-T was built in Weches and CCC Camp F-4-T was built in Ratcliff, both in 1933. These camps housed the companies that helped create the Davy Crockett National Forest. From 1933 until 1941, CCC workers transformed a small log pond into Ratcliff Lake, built recreational facilities and roads, installed phone lines, and fought fires. One of the most important CCC projects was to plant seedlings and reforest the land. Known as “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” the CCC planted about 3 million trees in the area. Davy Crockett National Forest now includes over 160,000 acres of woodlands in Houston and Trinity counties.
]]>During the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt joined with Congress to create a public relief program called the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Designed to provide jobs and stability for young men across the country, the CCC enrolled single, unemployed men between the ages of 18 and 25 in a variety of construction projects. For their work building roads, trails, dams, and firebreaks, the men received housing, food, and $30 a month ($25 of which had to be sent home to their families).
Between 1933 and 1941, the CCC assisted the Texas State Parks Board with the development of roughly fifty Texas state parks. Dozens of CCC units contributed to this park-building effort, including Company 2888, which began construction on Smith County’s Tyler State Park in 1935. The plan for Tyler State Park, designed by Ben K. Chambers and Joe C. Lair, called for the CCC to build a mess hall, water tower, boathouse, and more. The most daunting task that Company 2888 encountered was the construction of a 90-acre, man-made lake at the heart of the park. In order to build the lake, the workers had to clear substantial brush and debris, and then construct an 850-foot earthen dam. Another challenge facing the CCC was the threat posed by wildfires in the mid-1930s. Therefore, in 1936 and 1937, Company 2888 built fire breaks along the periphery of the park to defend against potential devastation.
In addition to the masonry work, dam construction, and brush clearing that Company 2888 performed, the men of the unit also found time to host dances, attend educational classes, and learn vocational trades. Smith County became a home-away-from-home for the men, and they made acquaintances with local people in the region. It was an enjoyable and rewarding time for everyone involved in the CCC, and many of the men remembered the experience for the rest of their lives.
When Tyler State Park officially opened in 1941, visitors marveled at the recreational opportunities the new site offered. Among the park's features still standing today are its original boat house, combination concession building, and bath house. In the 1970s, a flood destroyed a large portion of the park, but the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department rebuilt and modernized the damaged area. The park was reopened in 1975 and remains well-known for its prairie-style buildings, an architectural style not seen in other parks. With an array of outdoor activities and cabins, park goers today are able to enjoy the natural beauty of Tyler State Park.
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