Longleaf Destinations

Boykin Springs Recreation Area — Angelina National Forest, Texas

Boykin Springs Lake surrounded by upland pines

Pearl, the Boykin spaniel who is always up for a road trip adventure In addition to the numerous recreation opportunities onsite, the 2.75-mile Sawmill Hiking Trail connects the recreation area to the Aldridge Sawmill Historic Site.

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The ecology of the area is what brought me here, but the history is quite fascinating as well.

ach summer, I make it a point to escape from the Florida Panhandle’s nearly debilitating heat and humidity. This year I stuck it out for a couple of extra months and took my dog, Pearl, with me for a late October camping and hunting trip in the high plains of Nebraska. Within the same time that I was planning my trip, I was asked to visit the piney woods of eastern Texas and speak to the Texas Longleaf Implementation Team. Having never been to East Texas, I was more than willing to rearrange my travel plans to make it happen.

Usually, as I am road tripping, I try to explore and visit new places as my schedule permits. After meeting with so many

Egreat partners in Nacogdoches, I was left with a few hours to spare for the day. I had Angelina National Forest in my sights, one of the four National Forests located in the piney woods of Texas. With daylight hours waning, I knew that I would not be able to do much exploring off-trail so I focused my attention on recreation areas within the Forest. These areas provide easy access via paved roads to established campsites, restrooms, pavilions, etc. Being that Pearl is a Boykin spaniel, the recreation area named Boykin Springs immediately caught my attention, although the name is not connected with the dog breed. The ecology of the area is what brought me here, but the

Longleaf groundcover in fall is a collection of gold and purple, including Lobelia and yellow ray flowers.

Sunset in the Texas piney woods

history is quite fascinating as well. Boykin Springs is named after the Boykin community, one of several freedman settlements described in the book Freedom Colonies: Independent Black Texans in the Time of Jim Crow. Sterling Boykin, a white man with a large multiracial family, first settled in the area around 1850 and was challenged for teaching his Native and African American children to read and write, with one attack on the family resulting in a break-in and book burning. Sterling is buried in the small Boykin Cemetery onsite.

Now a recreation area, Boykin Springs is one of over one thousand sites constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). A 9-acre man-made spring-fed lake, built in 1938, is surrounded by a gorgeous setting of wellmaintained longleaf pine. In addition to camping, fishing, swimming, and canoeing opportunities, hiking trails directly stem from the recreation area. The 2.75-mile Sawmill Hiking Trail connects the recreation area to the Aldridge Sawmill Historic Site. En route to the mill site, this trail has views of the Neches River from multiple points, and portions of the trail follow an old tramway once used as a rail line to haul logs to the sawmills. The mill was initially constructed in 1905 by Hal Aldridge. By 1918, the mill was churning out about 125,000 board feet per day. This proved to be unsustainable, and the mill operation buckled in 1923 as the surrounding timber declined. The mill’s abandoned structures were built

from concrete due to repeated fires at the site, and their shells remain as windows into the past. The nearby community, also named Aldridge, followed in the mill’s tracks and was a ghost town by 1927. Unfortunately, Pearl and I arrived too late to visit much of the trail, but we did get to sneak in some botanizing. The recreation area and Angelina National Forest, as observed on the drive in, is on a landscape of rolling hills. It is always interesting to note how much plant communities change by a matter of feet and sometimes just inches of elevation change. Much of the area was dominated by pinehills bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium var. divergens), with sightings of big bluestem (Andropogon geradii) mixed interspersed across the area. A mix of golds and purples was also prominent Boykin Springs including Lobelia and yellow ray flowers. As our evening ended at Boykin Springs, it was hard not to wonder what this place and the rest of East Texas would have looked like a few hundred years ago. This is often a question that I think about whenever I visit new places. It is encouraging to see and know that longleaf strongholds such as these remain throughout the Southeast. Pearl and I will be back to visit soon. To get to Boykin Springs Recreation Area, take Highway 63 east from Zavalla for 10.5 miles; turn right (south) onto Forest Service Road 313 for 2.5 miles to the campground.