Texas Forest Country Is Alive with Outdoor Splendor
Whether it’s locals having fun on the weekend or visitors checking out some Texas-style scenery, outside is the place to be in the Texas Forest Country.
The region is rich in natural assets, creating an array of outdoor recreation opportunities, from hunting and fishing to boating and bird watching.
The 635-acre Lake Livingston State Park, adjoins a 90,000-acre lake that includes Polk, San Jacinto and Trinity counties and attracts around 78,000 visitors a year, says Wilburn Cox, park superintendent.
“We really do get people from all over the country and the world,” Cox says of the park, which opened in 1977.
The 144,500-acre Sam Rayburn Reservoir is known as one of the top five bass fisheries in the United States and hosts more than 300 fishing tournaments each year. Sam Rayburn, which touches Jasper, Tyler, Angelina, Nacogdoches, San Augustine and Sabine counties, includes a number of boat ramps and parks, many with full camping facilities.
A joint project of Texas and Louisiana, 185,000-acre Toledo Bend Reservoir, which touches Sabine, Shelby and Panola counties, is the largest man-made reservoir in the South, with 1,200 miles of shoreline.
As befitting its name, the Texas Forest Country includes five national forests. Among them is Davy Crockett National Forest in Houston and Trinity counties, the largest national forest in Texas and home to Ratcliff Lake Recreational Area, which surrounds a 45-acre lake.
The parks, forests and waterways tie in with other sites that promote and encourage eco-tourism in the region, says Betty Russo, project coordinator of the Texas Pineywoods Experience.
The sustainable tourist program is associated with The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit that works to protect the country’s landscapes and waterways.
Since 2006, the Pineywoods Experience (www.texaspineywoodsexperience.org) has worked to promote the region by highlighting its natural beauty and various historic sites, as well as acquiring available land, all of which help local communities flourish, Russo says.
The Conservation Fund recently purchased 6,600 acres in the Beaumont area and donated it back to the Big Thicket National Preserve.
“It’s an incredibly diverse area,” Russo says. “When we do things like that, people come to see the area, and that helps local tourism-dependent businesses.”
The region’s bountiful recreation opportunities lend themselves to cultural and heritage tourism, Russo says, because they tend to draw the all-important family demographic.
“When you’ve always been all about conservation and recreation, it’s a new thought process to suddenly start thinking about heritage tourism,” Russo says. “But tourism and economic development work hand in hand.”
Everything from the new Northeast Texas Winery Trail to tours through the remains of German POW camps established in East Texas during World War II are in the works, she says. They’ll no doubt benefit from the boaters, water skiers, campers and hikers that Cox sees at Lake Livingston.
“We did a study a couple of years ago that showed us bringing in around $3 million in outside revenue to the community, because we’re one of the main draws,” she says. “But when they’re here, they like to be able to go to other places, and so we work with our surrounding counties to help promote that.”
