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FORT
BOGGY
Fort
Boggy State Park
by Bob
Bowman |
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Texas
historians never gave Fort Boggy much more than a few sentences, but
today it has something to make up for the years of benign neglect:
Texas' first new state park in six years.
Located along Interstate 45 near Centerville,
the county seat of Leon County, Fort Boggy State Park derives its
name from an 1840s log fort built by early settlers on the north side
of Boggy Creek, a tributary of the Trinity River, about two miles
north of Leona.
Until now, Fort Boggy was remembered only by a 1936 Texas Centennial
marker and nine lines in the six-volume Handbook of Texas.
The fort was built by the Texas Rangers to protect East
Texas settlers from Indians who controlled much of the territory.
Some seventy-five people lived in eleven homes and two blockhouses
while the Rangers patrolled an area between the Navasota and Trinity
rivers.
Republic of Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar sent Captain Thomas
Greer to head up the protective force, but he was killed in 1841 while
tracking down Indian raiders.
The first settlements on Leon Prairie grew up around Fort Boggy and
the first store in the area was opened there by Moses Campbell. Thomas
Garner built the first sawmill.
After years of conflict, the Indians living around Fort Boggy fled
to Mexico and Indian territory. Several years later, hardships and
illness forced the settlers from Fort Boggy as well
By 1941, Fort Boggy had been dropped from Texas maps, but through
the persistence of local residents and a gift of 1,847 acres of land
by Leon County resident Eileen Crain Sullivan in 1985, after letting
her family's ranchland sit idle for 60 years and revert to its natural
state, the historic site is back on the maps -- this time as a scenic
state park. At present, only one section of the park, the day-use
area, has been developed. However, the public has access to much of
the park's scenery via hiking trails.
Anchoring the day-use area is a iron ore rock and hand-hewn pine pavilion
built to resemble the structures erected in Texas parks in the l930s
by prison inmates working for the Civilian Conservation Corps. All
that remains of Fort Boggy today is a wooden shack and its weathered
Centennial marker, but the lack of historical relics is offset by
the area's archeological and biological diversity.
Researchers have documented human occupancy in the Boggy Creek vicinity
dating from 10,000 B.C. to 6000 B.C. and biologists have identified
more than 700 species within the park's boundaries, including the
rare Centerville Brazos mint plant that grows in alluvial sands. Abundant
wildlife includes white-tailed deer, raccoons, foxes, beaver and squirrels.
Fort
Boggy State Park Area Hotels - Book Here & Save
Centerville
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Things Historical
January 29, 2004 Column
A syndicated column in over 40 East Texas newspapers
Published with permission
(This column is provided as a public service by the East Texas
Historical Association. Bob Bowman is a former president of the Association
and author of 30 books on East Texas.)
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