Texas Almanac, 1943-1944 Page: 203
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T T!: PARKS.
-Photo by State Highway Department.
Refectory and park headquarters at Bastrop State Park, Bastrop. This park is location
of farthest-west Southern pine.
Texas Parks-Tourist Attractions.Wartime limitations on travel and the ur-
gent need of spending as little time as
possible in traveling to and from vacation
resorts is expected to increase home-state
vacation trips by Texans for "the duration."
Texas has in recent years developed an ex-
cellent state park system that serves every
portion of its wide domain with every variety
of attraction--mountains, seashore, wvoods-
with modern equipment for recreation.
Principal development in Texas during the
last two yea s has been the establishment of
the Big Bend National Park. Because Texas
retained to itself all of its public domain by
the Treaty of Annexation there has hitherto
been no national park in this state. The
Seventy-Fourth Congress authorized the estab-
lishment and maintenance of a national park
in Texas conditioned upon the state donating
an area of approximately 788.000 acres in the
picturesque Big Bend of the Trans-Pecos.
State lands (school lands that had been sold
and defaulted to the state for taxes) were
appropriated by Legislature for this purpose
in the amount of about 250,000 acres. The
Forty-Seventh Legislature. 1941, appropriated
$1.500.000 for purchase of the remaining re-
quirement under supervision of the State
Parks Board. Upon termination of the pur-
chase program the land was deeded to the
Federal Government, and operation of the Big
Bend National Park is being started during
1943. Until the close of World War II there
will be little development. Mexico has tenta-
tively agreed to donate about 400.000 acres on
the opposite side of the Rio Grande for the
formation of an international park. to be
dedicated to peaceful relations between thetwo countries. The Chisos Mountains and the
Santa Elena, Boquillas and other canyons on
the Rio Grande are the principal scenic
attractions.
There are in Texas four great natural tour-
ist resorts. These regions include the Texas
Gulf Coast, the mountainous Trans-Pecos
region, the Edwards Plateau of Southwest
Texas commonly referred to as the Hill
Country, and the East Texas forest belt in-
cluding four National Forests and the famous
Big Thicket. (See pages 89-93.)
White sand beaches extend along the Texas
Gulf Coast for hundreds of miles. There are
many protected bays where small boats are
safe and sailboating is very popular. There
is a cool breeze from the Gulf in the summer
and a warm sun in winter. The year-round
salt water fishing is exceptionally good as is
the winter duck and goose hunting. Many
migratory birds spend the winter along this
coast.
The Trans-Pecos Region is a high plateau
out of which several mountain ranges rise. It
includes the Davis Mountains, the Guadalupe
Mountains and the Chisos Mountains of the
rugged Big Bend country. Fort Davis, in the
heart of the Davis Mountains, is a mecca for
the patrons of guest ranches that are numer-
ous in this section. The near-by Davis Moun-
tains State Park with its picturesque Indian
Lodge, the McDonald Observatory on the top
of Mount Locke and old Fort Davis are of
special interest to visitors in this section.
The Big Bend is the vast, arid, mountain-
ous region that is half encircled by the Rio
(Continued on Page 205.)203
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Texas Almanac, 1943-1944, book, 1943; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117165/m1/205/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.