Spring Creek Forest Preserve

The "Spring Creek Forest Preserve" is a county-owned nature park located in Garland, a suburb of Dallas, Texas.

Landscape

The preserve is situated in Dallas County, and features unspoiled wilderness with a clear, bubbling stream, rocky cliffs, and 87-million-year-old Cretaceous fossils, an unheard of combination normally only found south of the DFW Metroplex toward the Austin Hillcountry. The limestone cliffs tower between 30 to 40 feet and are spaced at regular intervals along the last five miles of the creek located in Garland and Richardson. The entire length of the creek is completely Spring fed at a constant 72 degrees from the source, varying in depth between one and six feet. Excellent water clarity allows one to watch the native Longear Sunfish, which can be seen gliding along the white, limestone bottom.

Preservation

The densely shaded preserve has been improved with miles of earthen trail and a short quarter mile section of concrete trail leading from the paved parking lot to the water's edge. The land won preservation status due to its unique old growth trees and endangered species. The preserve website contains thousands of photographs of the landscape, flowers, wildlife and water. In keeping with the goals of the preservation society, the forest is being kept as natural as possible so that visitors can literally step back in time and experience life as it was before the area was settled by the Peter's Colony in 1846. Every February, nature walks are held by the society to celebrate the blooming of the Trout Lily or Dog-Tooth-Violet, a tiny plant that belongs to the same family as the African Violet. The Trout Lily is considered the harbinger of Spring for locals. The annual walks attract large crowds of outdoors people and is a much more popular way of celebrating the arrival of Spring than even Groundhog Day.

The forest is surrounded up and downstream by several other city and county parcels such as: the Firewheel Golf Park, the Fred E. Harris Section of the Spring Creek Greenbelt park, the Spring Creek Nature Trails recreation area in Richardson, and the [http://parks.planotx.org/econnect/Facilities/FacilitiesDetail.asp?FacilityId=531 Jack Carter Dog Park] in Plano. The majority of Spring Creek has been boxed in by private housing developments and commercial office buildings

The total preservation area contains multiple sections. The Lee F. Jackson Spring Creek Forest Preserve, where official tours are held at 1789 Holford Rd., contains approximately 83 acres. The Dallas County Park Preserve located on the opposite side of the bridge at 1789 Holford Rd., contains 33 acres. Other parts of the flood plain, which have not official access, do have earthen trails amongst old growth forest. do not have parking access but which do have trails, could exceed which currently contains 15 acres, is maintained and managed by the [http://www.springcreekforest.org Spring Creek Forest Preservation Society] a private, not-for-profit organization formed in 1987 to oversee the park under the guidance of the Garland Parks and Recreation Department as provided under its contract with Dallas County. The land was originally purchased from private land owners through a Dallas County Bond Election.

Interesting Facts

One of the forest's most notable residents was Anne Weary, a world-renowned artist, whose family owned a majority of the property located on each side of Holford Rd. The old growth trees served as the inspiration and subject of Anne's paintings. Anne spend much of her youth meticulously drawing her favorite trees in the forest. Anne's original drawings and paintings are now on display at a local art gallery in Dallas. In the past, her artwork has appeared at the Dallas Museum of Art. Once the city began to encroach on Anne's childhood home, she made the hard decision to leave her beloved forest relocated to the Hillcountry near San Antonio to regain the much needed isolation and beauty of a rural setting that she craved. By donating the land of trees she helped forever preserve this treasure for future generations.

Future

Today, there exists a great quantity of undeveloped acreage, which could be preserved, on both publicly- and privately-owned land. Due to the lack of county funding, current private landowners will most likely sell their land to commercial developers. The destruction of this area began to escalate with the completion of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_George_Bush_Turnpike 190 Bush Tollway] , which passes directly over Spring Creek. Official development of the area has been in the active planning stages for at least the last decade. The most recent major projects have been the completion of the nearby Firewheel Golf Course and the newly developed Firewheel Town Center, a.k.a., shopping mall. The area is slated to become a major tourist attraction for corporate travelers due to its proximity to [http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/telecom_corridor_richardson_nickname/ Richardson's Telecom Corridor] . The middle waters of Spring Creek flow in the shadows of the [http://owensinc.com/website/owens/ohomepage.nsf Owen's Sausage] farm/processing plant and several computer technology skyscrapers. [http://www.walmart.com/storeLocator/ca_storefinder_details_short.do?rx_title=com.wm.www.apps.storelocator.page.serviceLink.title.default&edit_object_id=1055&rx_dest=%2Findex.gsp&sfsearch_state=&sfsearch_city=&sfsearch_zip=75041 Walmart and Sam's Club] were built within hundreds of feet of the preserve with little protest from the citizenry. The headwaters literally flow under [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collin_Creek_Mall Collin Creek Mall] in Plano.

As with any major commercial development, the value of the few remaining parcels along Spring Creek have begun to skyrocket. City officials admit that the city is now officially landlocked since it is also surrounded on all sides by other suburbs. This means that the remaining ecologically sensitive area located on private lands is in danger of developmental destruction. The only way for the remaining natural limestone outcroppings, dramatic elevations and large colonies of Trout Lilies to be preserved, is for a philanthropist to come forward and purchase land for preservation. While it was hoped by many citizens for many years that the county would purchase the land, or in the least that the city Planning and Zoning Commission would only approve environmentally-related businesses, it is now apparent that this is not the case. The City Council has directed the commission to approve any and all development projects under the same regulations required for all commercial businesses in the neighboring hotel, restaurant, and housing development zone.

External Links

[http://www.springcreekforest.org Spring Creek Forest Preserve Official Website]

[http://www.dallascounty.org/trails/tapp_map.html Dallas County's List of Parks & Trails]