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Parks to Pique Your Interest
Experience the wonders of nature in your own back yard. Two extraordinary outdoor destinations located right here in Precinct 4 are John Paul Landing Park and Environmental Education Center and Kleb Woods Nature Preserve & Center.
Spanning 865 acres, John Paul Landing Park contains trails, picnic areas, playground equipment, and a 170 acre lake.
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Not only does the lake provide a great place to fish, but it also serves as a major flood detention facility for the area. The lake is home to a variety of terrestrial and aquatic wildlife.
In the northern portion of the park is the John Paul Landing Environmental Education Center. Located at 9950 Katy Hockley Road, the education center is open Tuesday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Offerings at the center include nature classes for kids, weekly bird walks, nature discussion groups, displays and games, senior birding bus trips, and backyard naturalist programs.
JOHN PAUL LANDING PARK AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION CENTER
For more information visit the education center or call 713-274-3131.
Park Hours: 7 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Another feather in the cap of Precinct 4 is Kleb Woods Nature Preserve & Center. The preserve features more than 3 miles of paved and natural trails through 133 acres of pine forests, wetlands, and a remnant prairie.
Before becoming a preserve, the property was prairie and farmland owned by the Kleb family. Elmer Kleb, who lived on the property from his birth in 1907 until his death in 1999, spent decades transforming the sparse farmland into a forested preserve. Now a thickly canopied forest, the preserve includes loblolly pine, Shumard oak, water oak, live oak, eastern red cedar, sugarberry, and pecan trees.
Harris County bought the land in 1991 to create a nature preserve, center, and heritage farm. Visitors can explore the old Kleb homestead and blacksmith shop by appointment and view historical farm equipment. The park is also a popular birding destination, featuring sparrows, wrens, blackbirds, mockingbirds, thrushes, robins, and waxwings. Camping is also available to Scouts.
KLEB WOODS NATURE CENTER & PRESERVE
For more information visit the nature center or call 281-357-5324.
Park Hours: 7 a.m. – Dusk
