Fort Worth Prairie Park

The Fort Worth Prairie Park

The original Fort Worth Prairie Ecosystem is home to over 2,000 native plant species; it is our “prairie rainforest.” It is an important breeding and resting ground for internationally migrating monarch butterflies and Central Flyway grassland birds, whose numbers are crashing. Rock Creek and unnamed streams run through it. All kinds of native wildlife live there, including two genetically pure buffalo from the Fort Worth Nature Refuge, whose ancestors come from the original Wichita Mountains Herd. There are threatened and endangered species, a 300-year-old native Texas cedar elm tree, and more. Furthermore, Texas Christian University (TCU), University of Texas-Arlington (UTA), and GPRC’s inner city youth leadership development program, Plains Youth InterACTION™, study and learn on this land.

This rare, never-been-plowed, original Fort Worth Prairie tallgrass landscape holds enormous ecological and cultural significance. It was a meeting ground for numerous Prairie Tribes, including indigenous Caddo and Wichita people who lived here. Escaped black slaves traversed these wild grasslands as they headed for “this other country to the south” (Mexico) that they’d heard about where they could reach freedom. There are frontier ruins of a settler’s old stone house from the 1850s, as well as a mysterious, nearly 3 mile long handbuilt rock wall, and a burial ground. The land survey dates back to a land grant from Juan Seguin that was given to a soldier who fought at San Jacinto in the Texas Revolution.

The Fort Worth Prairie ecosystem is a subset of the once famous Southern Tallgrass Prairie. Tallgrass Prairie in general is the most endangered major ecosystem in North America. The Fort Worth Prairie, with perhaps 30,000 scattered acres remaining (was originally 1.3 million acres stretching from just south of the Red River down to Johnson County) is considered G1/G2 (Globally Imperiled).