SPRING 2013
Visitors Guide
The Colorado River carves its way from one end of Fayette County to the other.
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Photo by Russell Bennett
A River Runs Through It
The Colorado River Is Why La Grange Was Settled and Continues to Impact its Present and Future By H.H. HOWZE The Fayette County Record
The Colorado River is probably the most defining natural feature in Fayette County. The river was a corridor for settlement and transportation in frontier times. Today, tamed by upstream dams, it provides residents and visitors alike with access to the natural – and human – history of the area. **************** Ten miles downstream from the Fayette-Bastrop County
line is the first public access to the river at the Lower Colorado River Authority’s Plum Park. The Colorado River as it flows from Plum to La Grange is full of surprises around every turn – and there are a lot of turns. Several species of birds frequent this stretch of the river: barred owls, green and blue herons, American egrets, hawks, crows, green kingfishers and black vultures. Further downriver, a sheer white chalk bluff rises 200 feet on the east side
while needle-nose gar snap at dragonflies and butterflies on the smooth surface. A two-hour float from Plum brings travelers to the broad mouth of Rabb’s Creek. This is where William Rabb and his family, members of Stephen F. Austin’s “Old Three Hundred,” settled on a threeleague headright (about 12,000 acres) in 1822. Rabb received so much land because he promised to establish a mill to grind corn for the colony on the large creek
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