Huntsville State Park is a wooded recreational area, six miles (10 km) southwest of
Huntsville, Texas
Huntsville is a city in and the county seat of Walker County, Texas. The population was 45,941 as of the 2020 census. It is the center of the Huntsville micropolitan area. Huntsville is in the East Texas Piney Woods on Interstate 45 and home ...
, within
Walker County and the
Sam Houston National Forest
The Sam Houston National Forest, one of four National Forests in Texas, is located 50 miles north of Houston. The forest is administered together with the other three United States National Forests and two National Grasslands located entirely in ...
.
[The Look of Nature: Designing Texas State Parks During the Great Depression]
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, April 23, 2014.
History
In the early 1930s, at a meeting of the Huntsville-Walker County Chamber of Commerce, it was suggested that a park be built around Huntsville. The Chamber of Commerce took the proposal to the Texas State Parks Board. The board required that the community provide
the land for the park. Twenty thousand dollars in bonds would have to be sold by Walker County to pay for the land needed. In early
1936, the bond issue passed with more than four to one in favor of selling the bonds.
[Huntsville State Park History]
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, April 23, 2014.
From 1937 to 1942,
Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...
(CCC) Company 1823(CV), an experienced company of African American World War I veterans, made initial improvements to the site, including construction of the combination building, the boat house, and the dam and spillway creating Lake Raven. The company also had to clear the future lake bed of standing timber before filling the lake. Other CCC projects in the park included a swimming platform, stone culverts, picnic areas, Lakeshore Road, a bridge, stone road-curbing, a well, water intake structure, and frame pump house. The spillway gave way after a 1940 flood and Lake Raven drained. This scuttled plans to build a bath house and cabins.
[
CCC Companies 873 and 1827 were assigned to the area between 1933 and 1937 for firefighting and flood control. They also built unpaved roads within the park, which have mostly grown over.
With the start of World War II, the CCC's work ended, but ]Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
workers and prison laborers completed projects that included building roads and water and septic systems, allowing limited use of the park in summer months during the war.
A private contractor began repairs on the dam in 1955 and it was completed in April, 1956. The Huntsville-Walker County Chamber of Commerce dedicated and opened Huntsville State Park to the public on Friday, May 18, 1956.[
]
Nature
The park is dominated by loblolly pine
''Pinus taeda'', commonly known as loblolly pine, is one of several pines native to the Southeastern United States, from East Texas to Florida, and north to southern New Jersey. The wood industry classifies the species as a southern yellow pine. ...
and shortleaf pine trees. White-tailed deer
The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...
, raccoons
The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the common raccoon to distinguish it from other species, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of , and a body weight of . ...
, opossums
Opossums () are members of the marsupial order Didelphimorphia () endemic to the Americas. The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 93 species in 18 genera. Opossums originated in South America and entered North A ...
, armadillos, and fox squirrels
The fox squirrel (''Sciurus niger''), also known as the eastern fox squirrel or Bryant's fox squirrel, is the largest species of tree squirrel native to North America. Despite the differences in size and coloration, it is sometimes mistaken for A ...
live in the park. 218 species of birds have been documented either on the ground or flying over the park. Lake Raven has crappie, bluegill, catfish
Catfish (or catfishes; order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the three largest species alive ...
and bass. Occasionally alligators
An alligator is a large reptile in the Crocodilia order in the genus ''Alligator'' of the family Alligatoridae. The two extant species are the American alligator (''A. mississippiensis'') and the Chinese alligator (''A. sinensis''). Additionall ...
have been spotted in the lake.
Notes
External links
Texas Parks and Wildlife Park Page1969 home movie of Huntsville State Park from the Coltman Collection
on the Texas Archive of the Moving Image
The Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI) is an independent 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2002 by film archivist and University of Texas at Austin professor Caroline Frick, PhD. TAMI's mission is to preserve, study, and exhibit Texas film h ...
State parks of Texas
Protected areas of Walker County, Texas
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