Early Spring On Lower White Rock Creek

Pemberton Meadow in the Great Trinity Forest

The photo above represents what proper land stewardship and proper conservation gives you as a reward. That's close to half a mile of wildflower covered meadow along lowest White Rock Creek in the Great Trinity Forest. It's no accident it looks this way. The Pemberton family and pioneer settlers before them treat the land as a gift, the reward is something that is priceless. Can you believe this is in Dallas?

The Pembertons using good solid conservation practices have kept this in pristine shape. It's tractor mowed every so often to keep the weeds down. Otherwise it would revert into an unmanageable mess. In a time when the city wants to spend many millions of dollars to develop signature destinations for the Great Trinity Forest, I wonder how many people would much rather watch the sunset in a dead silent meadow like this?

It was just random luck that I passed by the Pemberton farm that late Sunday afternoon. They were outside greeting some company and they invited me in. Fresh baked cookies, still warm.

Below is a short clip of that late afternoon. Totally spur of the moment and unscripted. That's what the Great Trinity Forest is like down there. Poking at stuff, checking things out, getting a little muddy. One thing you'll notice is that Mr Pemberton over the course of his walk picks up trash as he goes. Towards the end he has two handfuls. That trash floats in with flood water from White Rock Creek. Keeping the historic spring and surrounding area keeps him busy.

People have lived on this part of the creek for centuries. To the left(inset) Mr Pemberton is scraping away some dirt to reveal the brick porch of his grandfather's home, Case Pemberton. You can read more on the really interesting background of the Pemberton Farm, Sam Houston's Treaty Party and the great natural spring in an earlier post Where The Red Fern Looking Stuff Grows




Many of the original pioneers that settled this part of White Rock Creek are buried not too far upstream in the Beeman Cemetery on Gault Street

The Beeman Cemetery sits fairly hidden just above the White Rock Creek floodplain on the west bank. This cemetery was on John Beeman's 640 acre headright granted to him by the Republic of Texas. Their first home was a two story fortified blockhouse just a couple hundred yards east of the cemetery. They moved to that spot on April 8, 1842, 170 years ago. That same week, John Beeman planted the first corn crop in Dallas County.

The blockhouse was built for defense more than beauty. Indian raids were quite common during this time and when John Beeman was gone on errands or business, it left Emily Beeman alone to fend for herself. One really awesome part of the family plot there is the large memorial to Emily Beeman (below) holding a musket in on hand and a baby in the other.

Mrs Emily Beeman Holding Her Son Scott And Guarding Against Indians In Dallas Co. In 1841

The following brief history is written by local historian MC Toyer :

When the Beeman's arrived in the spring of 1842 they settled first on White Rock Creek at about present Forney / Military Parkway which a few years later would be the route of the Central National Highway from Dallas to Jonesborough on the Red River, northeast of Paris.
An old Indian and buffalo trail (later the general route of Scyene Road) also crossed White Rock Creek near there.

The patriarch, John Beeman, was a farmer, merchant, trader, and ferry and mill operator in Illinois before coming to Texas. He also owned a coal and lumber yard. The following spring the heads of family would locate additional lands east of White Rock Creek. John Beeman held Toby Script and a third class certificate entitling him to claim 1280 acres. His nephew John S Beeman and step-brother James Jackson Beeman both held 3rd class certificates of 640 acres each.

John Beeman located three 320 acre tracks just east of White Rock Creek and south of present Scyene Road. He named them Big Spring (on which White Rock Springs was located) Prairie (on high ground out of the bottoms) and Cedar Brake (heavily wooded slopes and bottom land).
He no doubt had in mind several sources of income. A grist mill was built on White Rock Creek, cattle grazed on Prairie, crops were raised on Big Spring, and timber harvested from Cedar Brake.

John S and James Jackson Beeman also located their claims along the trail which became Scyene Road (tradition says it was named by James Jackson Beeman) and in 1846 another brother, Samuel Beeman and brother-in-law, William Hunnicutt located their claims nearby. All were primarily farmers, though James Jackson Beeman would move to the future Parker County in 1855 where he operated a Trading Post on the Fort Worth - Fort Belknap Road. About half of John S Beeman's land is now the Grover Keeton Golf Course. The north western portion of James Jackson Beeman's land was acquired by the City of Dallas for park land several years ago. The Indian Marker Tree is on part of his land that had been previously sold and developed. Devon Anderson Park is on John Beeman's Prairie Tract. The flood-prone Roosevelt Park housing area is on John Beeman's Cedar Brake Tract.

Clover Covered Beeman Cabin Site 2012

Margaret (Beeman) Bryan inherited half of the Big Spring Tract and that is where she and John lived from 1866 to 1877. She then sold the land to Edward Case Pemberton and his descendants still own part of it. Billy Pemberton owns the portion that includes White Rock Springs (which still flow) and the City of Dallas has acquired much land all around it.--MC Toyer

John Beeman was the man who set many firsts in Dallas. He owned the first wagon. He was the first farmer. The first married man with a wife. The first with children. The first true homestead. Helped build the first ferry across the Trinity. When Texas became part of the United States in 1846, he was the first elected representative.

Just beyond his grave, maybe 100 yards away on the other side of the trees in the photo is the first field in Dallas ever to see a plow.

Emily Hunnicut Beeman, his wife, was the second white woman ever to see Dallas. She must have been a force to be reckoned with in those early days when the realities of Comanche attack were very real. Her husband was attacked by an Comanche raiding party near present day West Village shopping center in Uptown. They chased him as far as present day Fair Park before giving up. He escaped with his life, losing many of the important documents he was carrying along with a hat. He went back the next day to gather his papers which the Indians had no use for.

Many other graves of the Lagow and Hunnicut families exist too. Over 100 in all. A full list can be found on Jim Wheat's Dallas County Archives . Many of the Beemans were noted Indian fighters and built Bird's Fort in present day Arlington before heading east to settle in what is now Dallas. Much of what they did back then would be considered impossible by contemporary standards.

Hopefully this bit of the past can be preserved along with the land that these people settled so long ago. There are a number of issues slowly creeping into the picture with neighbors near the spring complex moving dirt around or making plans for a pig farm/slaughter operation. I think that could have some grave implications for the water quality of Bryan's Slough, Sam Houston's Spring and the woods to the west. This all involves a complicated chess game with leases and the Texas Horse Park site. I was told the lease expires in September, six months from now.

 

Texas Buckeye Trail Blooms

The Texas Buckeye

One of the earliest trees to leaf out in the spring, the Texas Buckeyes of the Great Trinity Forest are starting to make their showy and brief annual display. Given the mild and wet winter of 2012, the forest is weeks ahead of where it was in foliage compared to this time last year. The photo above was taken Sunday March 4, 2012. It's a photo of a Texas Buckeye flower somewhere between budding and blooming. I would expect that the Texas Buckeye Trail will probably peak with the blossoms in the next couple weeks, the week of March 18-March 25.

I would encourage anyone interested in the Texas Buckeye Trail to take a guided hike offered by Texas Master Naturalist Jim Flood:

http://www.texasbuckeyetrail.org/

He has guided hikes that start from the Buckeye Trailhead at 7000 Bexar Street in Dallas
Friday MARCH 16 at 9am
Saturday MARCH 17 at 9am and 12 Noon
Sunday MARCH 18 at 9am and 12 Noon


I will add that when I was down there on Sunday March 4th the mosquitoes were out in full force, even in the middle of the afternoon. Wear plenty of insect repellent and long pants. Last year, I don't recall even seeing mosquitoes anywhere in the Great Trinity Forest. They are out big time this spring!


From the Texas Native Plants Database: Texas Buckeye has palmately compound leaves with seven to nine (sometimes eleven) leaflets, vs. the five leaflets of red buckeye. The flowers are creamy white to light yellow, appearing in terminal clusters after the leaves appear. The fruit, a leathery capsule with blunt spines, has one to three large shiny seeds. The seeds are known to be poisonous, and it is possible that all parts of the plant are as well. It tends to prematurely drop leaves in hot, droughty situations, due to leaf scorch and fungal diseases. Usually a small shrub or small tree, Texas buckeye reaches its largest size (more than 40 feet) in the hard limestone of the central Edwards Plateau, although it also occurs in the northern Blacklands, Cross Timbers and Prairies, Pineywoods, and Post Oak Savannah.

Forest floor under Buckeye Grove carpeted with Texas False Garlic (Nothoscordum texanum)

If you are unfamiliar with Texas Buckeyes, the trail or how to get there click on the link below that shows the exact location of the largest grouping of the Texas Buckeye Trees. If you want to go it on your own or cannot make it to one of the formal hikes
http://g.co/maps/p76u5

The GPS coordinates are 32° 43' 36.88", -96° 44' 57.16

I have written previously about the Texas Buckeye Trail and surrounding trails inside William Blair Park. Click on the links to read more

Information on the concrete trail and some of the dirt paths
Rochester Park and Texas Buckeye Trail

Information on more adventurous trail hikes down to the mouth of White Rock Creek
William Blair Park and the Perimeter Trail

Information on neighboring Miller's Ferry, a short walk from the Buckeye Trail
Miller's Ferry

Texas Buckeye Trail in William Blair Park March 2012

Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge Fireworks Show

Below is a video clip I shot on the evening of March 3, 2012 featuring the complete grand opening fireworks show for the Santiago Calatrava designed Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge

Best viewed in HD the link of which is here Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge Fireworks in HD

It's shot in 720p at 60 frames per second. I could have shot it in 1080 at 30 frames but wanted a higher framerate to catch the fireworks as best as possible. This was shot using a waterproof camera often used in shallow water coral reef scuba diving. I wanted to use something that lacked a mechanical auto focus so that everything stayed crystal clear. I waded out into a pond and stuck the camera on a tripod about 2 inches above the surface, hoping for a nice reflection. I was a little worried as the kick off approached because a low level ground fog was forming across the surface of the pond. You can see it in the distance during some of the larger explosions.

The video really only captures the bottom 1/4 or 1/3 of the fireworks. The camera was so close that it did not capture the highest aerial fireworks. You can hear them, you just cannot see them. The explosions were so large that if watch the video carefully, you can see the concussions causing ripples on the surface of the pond.

Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge Grand Opening Saturday night

Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge Party with band stage on left

Great Trinity Forest -- The Truck Farm Trail

In Dallas, you rarely find a place that wind, weather and woods are allowed to slowly dismantle. Usually bulldozers and backhoes do that work around here. Progress and paving usually gobble up old farmsteads around the county for new roads and development. There is a place though, tucked into the corner of the Great Trinity Forest where some of that old Dallas County farming life is preserved. It's a place for lack of a better term, I call the Truck Farm.

As far as I know, the trail through this old farm is the only soft surface trail on the south side of the river in the Great Trinity Forest. It was really just an old abandoned farm double track road that started to vanish with the passage of time. The rebirth of it came out of necessity for the horseback riders (inset left) who have used the Great Trinity Forest for decades.

The city is turning the old Simpson Stuart Road from a gravel access road into a hike and bike path that connects with the Audubon Center. The construction progress took a turn for the worse when the Water Utilities Department started on a project to reinforce a section of the riverbank very close to where the new Trinity Trail is located. They need the same acre of real estate for a little while before the final few hundred yards of trail concrete can be poured. Fair enough. In the mean time, in order to prevent vehicles from illegally dumping or driving into the park, the construction company built a berm across the trail(see below). Simpson Stuart Road is an attractive spot for illegal dumping given its close proximity to the McCommas Bluff Landfill. Errant trash haulers will often dump their loads along this block rather than visit the landfill.

Lotta long faces when that happened. Late last fall, I stopped by the home of one of the guys I often see riding down there to ask why I have not seen his friends or horse tracks along the river. The berm he said. They were promised it would only be a few weeks. Well, those weeks turned into months. They are no closer to finishing now in March than they were in September, six months ago. Presented with a truckload of lemons, we made lemonade.

Knowing that there was an easy workaround just a couple hundred yards away, the old farm trail started seeing more use.

The trail itself has always existed. It was hidden from view when the Phase I of the Trinity Trail through Joppa was built in 2008. A bulldozer clearing debris pushed over a number of chinese privet bushes and dead tree branches into a pile in front of the trail opening, unknowingly blocking off access to the trail.

Getting that now dead brush pile out of the way, throwing away 45 old tires and some some illegally dumped roofing shingles, it all of the sudden became a trail again.

Disclaimer: The golden rule in city and county parks here is that you're not allowed to cut brush or trim stuff without approval. I know that's a big no-no. This was all dead stuff, deadfall and illegally dumped trash. None of what we did qualified under the umbrella of any restrictions regarding removal of vegetation.


I have taken a number of people back to this area over the last couple years. Frequent D Magazine contributor and Master Naturalist Bill Holston went with me last fall to this area and wrote a column about it Bill Holston Parched on the Trinity. His description of the old structures, the old dam and remote location are the same one discussed here.

Map: From the 5700 Simpson Stuart Road trailhead, travel north on the paved path about 150 yards till you see an opening in the brush. Trail is not long about 4/10 of a mile and rejoins the paved path to the east. It can also be reached from the Loop 12 Boat Ramp or River Oaks Park using the completed paved path through the Joppa Preserve Trail

Snowdrop flowers on the paved trail through Joppa Preserve at the Truck Farm Trail entrance

What in the world is a truck farm?

A truck farm is a small scale farm that produces a wide variety of fresh produce for sale locally. Many different crops and varieties are grown in contrast with larger industrialized farms that grow only one crop. A truck farm employs more hands on gardening techniques compared with large scale industrialized farming. Since production is small in scale, the market for the crops are usually local grocery stores, the farmer's market or restaurants. One of the main customers of this particular farm was Safeway grocery stores. If you bought fresh produce from Safeway in the 1960s and 1970s in Dallas, some of your food came off this farm.

Archeological survey map of the site

This area was investigated in an archeological survey pursuant to the Texas Antiquities Code and the National Historic Preservation Act as recently as 2001. Joppa Preserve contains three prehistoric sites and two historic sites. Previous surveys were done in the 1940s, 1970s, 1990s and in the 00's. The prehistoric sites have yielded a number of artifacts including spear points, arrowheads, human remains and animal bones. I think the consensus is that the area between Little Lemmon Lake and Lemmon Lake was a prehistoric bison kill site of some kind. Some of the bison bone tested dates back to the same decade that work on Notre Dame began in Paris, 1163 AD.

The truck farm area has a historic site built on top of a prehistoric site. Another case like Miller's Ferry where humans seem to inhabit the same spot over and over again. A request by the latest archeological survey to dig at the truck farm site for prehistoric artifacts was shot down by the county. Whatever sits there, will remain there I guess.

The historic background of the site is a little confusing. The first deed on record showed that it was purchased in 1886 by former Confederate officers for a rod and gun club. In 1922 it was transferred as a warranty deed, part of the Harry Cox estate. It is believed that during the early 1900s a Japanese family farmed the land here. In 1902, Sadatsuchi Uchida a Japanese consular official settled thirty farming families in Texas from Japan. They were rice farmers and were attracted mainly to the coastal rice belt of Texas along the coast. The rice market cratered ten years later and many of the farmers moved into truck farming. It is thought that this farm in Joppa was one of these farms.

In 1921, Texas passed an alien land law forbidding ethnic Japanese from owning land. In 1940, only 458 residents were of Japanese ancestry in Texas. It was around that time that, according to the archeological survey, the Japanese were forced to sell their land. It was during that year, 1940, that a large internment camp was built in Seagoville, just down the road, for possible future use in a pending world war. That camp later housed 600. During this time from 1939-1944 it was owned by a JC Kelly who sold in 1944 to the Wulschleger family. The Wulschlegers ran the farm for many years after that. The Wulschlegers went on to supply fresh produce to many local customers including the Safeway chain.

I have been told by a few people that were former residents of the Floral Farms community that Japanese did live and farm this land. An intriguing mystery.

Circa 1945 Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Assoc Sign, Joppa Preserve

Above is an old sign I found a couple years ago, attached to a mangled mess of barbed wire fence that was balled up in a pile with trash when Phase I of the Trinity Trail was under construction. I threw it into the woods to save it from becoming trash and only recently dragged it back out. This sign was produced by McMath Axilrod at 620 Third Avenue in Dallas in 1945. It's a steel sign with a porcelain finish. This sign was designed by John B McMath, chief engineer of McMath Axilrod. Mr McMath ten years earlier designed, constructed and installed the now famous Pegasus sign for Magnolia Oil Company for a National Petroleum Institute Convention in 1934. He also designed the porcelain and neon facade for the Lakewood and Inwood theaters. This old cattle ranching sign probably belongs in a museum.

The trail itself meanders past a few old dilapidated shacks, a building foundation and some farm equipment.

The trail passes through this concrete structure which I believe is part of an aqueduct system that gravity fed irrigation water to the crops. In the woods you'll see sprinkler pipes elevated on poles in some spots, that watered the plants.

Interior of pumphouse shed overlooking South Pond

The pumphouse still has pump mounts but lacks any of the old equipment inside. Looks like someone more recently, within the last 20-30 years built a right handed bench rifle rest inside of it...and must have taken a turtle as quarry at some point.

Potential of a trail across the Lemmon Lake Dam

A secondary idea for a future trail would be one that branches off from the same spot, across the Lemmon Lake dam road to the Trinity River. As of this writing in early March, Lemmon Lake is full to capacity, 200 acres of lake and flooded timber. A trail using the route outlined above would not be underwater even during wet periods. The base of the road on the dam is pea gravel, a near all weather surface. The roadbed looks just like the video clip below, filmed in 1967 at Little Lemmon Lake in Joppa Preserve:

Bonnie and Clyde 1967 at Little Lemmon Lake/Lemmon Lake

Flooded Lemmon Lake, winter 2012

On the backside of the dam is what is listed in the Big Tree Registry to be the tallest tree in Dallas, a cottonwood, shown above. So tall that you cannot see the top of it from the base.

It's a great little trail and serves as a welcome change from the now common miles of concrete trail underfoot. Hopefully, it can maybe someday be turned into more of a formal trail where people can learn about rural farming in Dallas during the last century. Given the close proximity to the trailhead and Eco Center, it would be a great site to bring school age children to educate them on farm life.

Houston Street Viaduct Turns 100

Looking north from Oak Cliff President's Day 1912

It was George Washington's Birthday, February 22, 1912 that one of the most important events in Dallas history took place. The grand opening of the Dallas-Oak Cliff Viaduct now known as the Houston Street Viaduct. The whole city paused for an entire day to celebrate the opening. A two mile long parade wound through downtown Dallas, snaking it's way towards the northern approach. A battalion of US Army horse drawn artillery led the parade. They promptly setup their artillery pieces along the river at the foot of the bridge and fired off a 21 gun salute.

Looking north from Oak Cliff President's Day 2012

The bridge itself was more than just another way to get across the river. It was the first permanent solution to crossing the flood prone Trinity in Dallas. It was also the first true permanent, all weather road link that joined Dallas and Oak Cliff.


The Houston Street Viaduct's centennial is perhaps overshadowed in a literal and figurative sense by the newest bridge just upstream, the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. Exactly 100 years on, the excitement of the new Caltrava Bridge has muted one of the great milestone achievements of Dallas as a city.

The Houston Street Viaduct was conceived after the devastating flood of 1908 separated Dallas from Oak Cliff for weeks. Many of the wooden and steel bridges of the time were wrecked in that flood, crippling commerce and travel across the river. At a cost of $621,000, the city approved bonds to build the new bridge. The bridge was designed by Ira Hedrick using a truss and arch design. The building material was locally available concrete mixed on site using water from the Trinity. Much of the gravel used in the concrete came from pockets of alluvial soil in West Dallas and around Fair Park. The bridge has over 50 arches, one of which is wider than the rest, about 95 feet. Through this channel the river flows. The wider arch section was designed for boat and barge traffic. It was originally designed for two lanes of vehicle traffic and two full sets of trolley rails. The rails were never installed. That's why today, the configuration for 4 lanes seems a little off.

Houston Street Viaduct

Like a Roman aqueduct, the Houston Street Viaduct should last another 100. There is a time capsule buried somewhere along the bridge that was supposed to be opened today, February 22, 2012. Maybe someone can find it and open it up at the next centennial in 2112.

Santa Fe Trestle Trail on ice all of 2011 and into 2012 taken during Super Bowl Week 2011

The oldest structure still in place on the Trinity River is the old Santa Fe Trestle Trail. The stone bases of the bridge date from 1890, the bridge itself was installed in 1904. The blocks supporting the bridge were added at a later date to raise the bridge to the same height as the top of the levees, insuring that the tracks would never be underwater. It has taken the current contractor longer to retrofit the old bridge into a pedestrian/bike path than it took all the other construction on the bridge combined.

Hopefully the Santa Fe Trestle Trail will open soon. I understand a utility company needs to move some wires before that can happen. Once opened, a decent route on gravel exists from the Santa Fe Trail out to the old Westmoreland bridge and back. At 14 miles, it's a decent distance for most people. Access can be made from some parking currently under construction or from the DART Station at Corinth and 8th. Disappointing to many people, myself included, that the Santa Fe Trestle Trail and Dallas Wave whitewater park have been shuttered for so long. Time to open it up...............

Goat Island Preserve, Sand Branch and Parson's Slough

This is an epic to the historic, and still fresh in the minds of people, the mystic and fearsome Bois d'Arc Island a strip of land in the southern part of Dallas County, a couple of miles wide, and eight or ten miles long. Its area, up to recent years, was estimated all the way from ten to twenty times its actual size, because of the density of its timber and foliage, the game which abounded there, and the easiness of getting totally and irretrievably lost on cloudy days, or at night. --William Holford June 17, 1910

And that 102 year old article from the Garland News served as my only primer into the really strange world of Southeast Dallas County.

Here, the rules do not apply. What rules. No rules. No city politics. No laws. Welcome to unincorporated Dallas County. My previous visits to this part of the county were limited to a private gun lease on the river. I asked others what's beyond the bend in the river? What's on the other side? No one I know, knew. So I had to find out.

It was about the time the first European explorer laid eyes on North Texas that the Trinity River took an abrupt change of course. Cutting off a 14 mile stretch of the traditional stream bed for a more westerly course. The old riverbed became known as Parson's Slough and the 22,000 acre area surrounded by the new and old river became Bois d' Arc Island.

The map below from the turn of the last century shows the upper half of Bois d' Arc Island. Goat Island Preserve would be due east of Wilmer on the map.

Goat Island Preserve

If you are planning a visit to Goat Island with the hope of seeing goats, keep driving! There are no goats on Goat Island. Two ways to visit. One is the preserve makeshift parking area located at 2800 Post Oak Road which is north of Beltline Road and East of I-45. The other is 4400 South Beltline Road. The Beltline Road parking can be done on the old approach to the Beltline Road bridge. Neither are really attractive options. Both the Sheriff's Department and the Game Warden said it was OK to park on either approach to the old bridge.

Approaching the Post Oak Road entrance, you'll notice the extensive gravel mining operations underway around the area. Much of the land is owned by Trinity Industries and they mine different sections of land depending on customer demand. Each area has a variety of soils or gravel sizes.

Talking to a few other people who have been to Goat Island, the first subject brought up is "So what in the world do you think is going on with that house?"

This house....

The house sits directly across the street from the Goat Island Preserve. Surrounded on three sides by heavy gravel pit excavation, it now sits on a postage stamp spit of land not much larger than the footprint of the home itself. It makes you scratch your head in amazement. A Sheriff's Deputy I met down there as I was taking this photo said it was not surrounded on three sides, it was surrounded on all six sides. If there was such a thing. I wonder if the sands and gravels under the land there are really worth enough to allow something like this to happen.

Goat Island Preserve is comma shaped or like a kidney bean. It has a number of gravel and soft surface 4x4 roads and single track hiking/biking trails that meander through the woods from NW to SE towards Beltline Road. Some of the paths are on an old levee road built in 1920.

There might at one time or another been an actual working livestock farm here of some kind. I found a couple old concrete foundations near the Post Oak trailhead that were probably related to commercial farming of some kind.

The trails vary quite a bit depending how close you are to the river. Some of the lower 4x4 roads stay muddy year round due to the high water table in the area.












I think these are either Beaked Yucca or Blue Yucca plants. Standing about 8 feet tall among the live oaks and prairie that sit away from the river. While this area has always been in the formal floodplain of the Trinity since the last ice age, the new channel has carved through areas not associated with riverbank sedimentation. So you see yucca, live oak and other species that usually reside miles from the Trinity River bottoms. It's more of a soil issue than anything else.


Below are some of the deer that live at Goat Island Preserve. The second set of deer in the video are on the actual Goat Island itself, in the river channel. Goat Island is about an acre in size.

Also part of the preserve is Trinity River Lock and Dam Number 2. This is the sibling of the McCommas Bluff Lock and Dam Number 1. Constructed in 1909-1911, the robust lock works here backed the Trinity River up as far as McCommas Bluff. You can catch a glimpse of the lock from the Beltline Road bridge looking north. I have looked around the lock site and have not been able to find any evidence of a lock keepers house similar to the one at McCommas Bluff.

Lock and Dam #2 on the Trinity River, 1909

Lock and Dam #2 on the Trinity River, 2011

Parson's Slough

Parson's Slough

Parsons Slough was one of the finest fishing streams in Texas, probably, for many years. There were long, deep holes with gravel bottoms and crystal-clear water, and fish abounded there, until practically exterminated by dynamiters and netters. People went there to fish from all over Dallas, Collin, Rockwall, Kaufman, Ellis, and other counties, and for years, it was the hunter's and fisherman's paradise.--William Holford June 17, 1910

Thanks to a healthy dose of snooping around and a couple well worded formal letters I was able to check out a couple parts of Parson's Slough that outsiders never get to see. Here the perched aquifers of the Trinity Basin are allowed to flow undisturbed over Ice Age gravels, crystal clear into small creeks and then into the slough itself. The clear water here is a combination of nature changing the river's course and man making it permanent.

In 1911, the slough was permanently cutoff from the Trinity River near Goat Island Preserve. The same construction company that built Lock and Dam Number 2, built a concrete dam at the head of Parson's Slough where it meets the Trinity. Twenty feet high and two hundred feet wide, the goal was to permanently send the river down the new channel rather than risk a flood putting the river meander back in the old. I have looked for that old dam. Now buried under dozens of feet of silt, I cannot find it. It sits near the outflow channel near the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant. Buried. Only during times of the very highest water flows would the dam become a spillway.

Combined with some levee projects in the 1920s, this left Parson's Slough high and dry from the Trinity. It now serves as some of the very richest farmland in Dallas County. Much of which is owned by Trinity Industries for future gravel mining. Much of their property is easy to spot with the large "Blue Bird Farms" signs that are prominent over the entrances.

The water here percolates out of the ground like a coffee maker. Slowly. Over the old gravel. This slackwater zone probably allowed the Mary Phinney Saw Palmetto Alligator Slough to thrive. The old river route would have passed mere hundreds of yards from the palmetto groves. With the river's change of course it allowed areas previously scoured by flooding to remain undamaged.


Sand Branch

Horse sale sign, Beltline Road, Sand Branch, TX

The clean water of the Trinity Aquifer and cheap land were a strong lure to impoverished African Americans in the early part of the last century. Sharecroppers and field hands, a group of sturdy people formed the community of Sand Branch south of Dallas and west of Seagoville. Here a man could dig a well for water with a hand shovel, finding fresh clean water not even twelve feet down. Without the restrictions of city ordinances, the residents were free to raise farm animals, crops and build housing as they saw fit. In the century since it's founding, the residents have continued to live that way.

There are a number of odd socioeconomic headwinds in this part of the county. I'm not even sure how to describe the community of Sand Branch. If it were on the Rio Grande, you could call it a colonia. No running water. No sanitary sewer. No trash pickup. Some even lack electricity. I cannot believe in 2012 that people live that way in Dallas County. I cannot believe we let people live that way in Dallas County. I'm not passing judgment on the residents there. I have gotten to know a few over the past several months and they are making due with what they can. A rough lifestyle makes a rough person. I was not prepared for the abject, destitute poverty I encountered there.

The sandy loam and easy to dig gravel that first attracted the residents of Sand Branch, proved to be the demise of the community. In the 1950s, a rapidly growing Dallas needed gravel and sand for concrete construction. The easy to harvest gravels of Sand Branch became the prime source. What was once a post oak savannah mix of prairies and bottom lands quickly turned into something that resembled a World War I battlefield. The reliable water supply became tainted with heavy metals and animal waste and rendered unfit for human consumption. The residents blamed the new wastewater treatment plant that shoehorned itself into to the north side of the area. Fair enough, although some of the blame can be shared with the residents who raise confined farm animals, pigs, in cramped conditions.

I was really interested in finding a way to the old Parson's Slough Dam via Sand Branch. Bunche Street would get me within a couple hundred yards of it. I could never the dam though. Wandering around on some of the land, I was told to watch out for a herd of exotic Axis Deer that had taken up residence on the land to the south of Sand Branch. Sure enough I found them. Below is some video I shot of the herd:

Axis Deer(axis axis) also known as Chital or Cheetal are native to Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, India and Pakistan. They were introduced as an exotic game species here in Texas back in the 1960s. I was told this herd probably went feral off of a game ranch in western Kaufman County and wandered this way. Axis Deer are much larger than the native deer we have in Texas. They are donkey size. They really enjoy hot weather and breed year round. As a result, there are always smaller Chital around in the herd. I noticed several bucks in the group, with one larger one that commanded the center. There are over a dozen free ranging wild herds like this around the state.