URBAN

Memorial Park, Houston

WHAT WAS ONCE a training base for 70,000 soldiers during World War I is now a beloved urban wilderness in the midst of a major facelift. Houston's Memorial Park is reaping the benefits of more than 20 years of careful discussion, planning and now execution.

Shellye Arnold, president and CEO of Memorial Park Conservancy, says these changes came after a severe drought in Texas from 2010 to 2011, which killed a number of the park’s trees. When city leaders united in 2013 to improve the park, they hoped to replant the forest. However, after receiving counsel from the community, ecological experts and other stakeholders, they realized the park wouldn’t endure if they didn’t do more.

“If we tried to replant the forest and that’s all we did, it was not going to survive,” Arnold says. “Instead, we needed to plant a mix of ecologies.”

With this goal in mind, they realized they needed to rework park’s current layout. Though Memorial Park spans the distance of nearly two Central Parks (about 1,500 acres), Arnold says it wasn’t well-connected, with much of the park being sliced into pieces.

With expansion out of the question — the park is bordered by freeways and bayous — they decided to instead rearrange and stitch the park back together. This started with creating the Kinder Land Bridge and Cyvia & Melvyn Wolff Prairie over the wide and busy Memorial Drive to connect the north and south parts of the park and unify the ecosystem. They also completed Clay Family Eastern Glades, which used a neglected area of the park to establish wetlands, extend the native savanna habitat and provide a gathering space for visitors. Since the park’s master plan approval in 2015, both major projects were completed in 2023.

Arnold says the purpose behind these projects was not just to make changes but also to serve both the wildlife and the community.

“I started being very motivated by the wildlife piece and now I’m equally motivated by the people piece because I see how it transforms people,” Arnold says. “We’re not just seeking to do transformation for transformation’s sake; we’re seeking to elevate Houstonians’ lives.”

The next major project includes creating Memorial Groves, a site to honor the park’s history as Camp Logan, a WWI training base. This site will recognize those who trained at the camp. Memorial Groves is set to be finished by 2026. 

White Rock Lake Park, Dallas

Dallas residents and visitors turn to nature for calm amid the urban chaos. What was once a tree-filled valley where Native Americans hunted bison is now one of the most frequently used parks in the Dallas parks system. Aside from the outdoor activities the 1,015-acre lake park is known for, it’s also rumored to house a ghost, the Lady of the Lake.

Zilker Metropolitan Park, Austin

There is no other green space more valued in Austin than Zilker. A hub for disc golfers, picnickers, dog lovers, swimmers, volleyballers, music lovers and everybody in between, this urban park is well-used and well-loved. The city is in the middle of a heated debate about the future of the park. City leaders paused a plan to remove roads and add parking garages and an amphitheater.

REGIONAL

Lake Bastrop North Shore Park

IF YOU LOVE camping but don’t love messing with all the gear, Lake Bastrop North Shore Park offers options to make your outing hassle-free. Airstreams, cabins and safari-style tents may entice you for an overnight visit even if you flinch at the word “glamping.”

Not to be confused with its neighbor Bastrop State Park, Lake Bastrop North Shore Park is a 182-acre park that serves as a peaceful getaway for those in Central Texas.

This park, though humble in size, has much to offer including hike-and-bike trails, kayaking, paddleboarding and boating. What really makes this park stand out are its unique overnight accommodations. In addition to traditional campsites and RV spots, visitors can stay in Texas-themed Airstreams, safari-style tents or cabins.

More cabins are also available at North Shore’s sister park, Lake Bastrop South Shore Park, which sits across the 900-acre lake.

In addition to the Lake Bastrop parks, the LCRA operates dozens of parks along the Lower Colorado River from Lake Buchanan to Matagorda Bay.

North Shore Park sits on Lake Bastrop, which was created in 1964 to serve as a cooling reservoir for the Sim Gideon Power Plant. Margo Richards, the vice president of community resources at Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), says this functional decision led to this lake being a fishing hub for catching largemouth bass.

“One of the reasons it produces such great fishing is that it’s a warm-water lake because it serves the cooling reservoir,” Richards says.

When the LCRA acquired land to build the lake, it also created parks surrounding the lake to offer recreational activities. This led to the birth of North Shore Park, which opened to the public in 1968.

The North Shore and South Shore parks are connected through a trail system, which is surrounded by the loblolly pine trees of the Lost Pine region — a unique patch of pine trees that sit 100 miles west of where they’re normally found in the East Texas Piney Woods. Richards says she loves the North-South Trailway, which is 4.5 miles long.

“You are walking or mountain-biking through those loblolly pine trees and you're under the canopy of them,” Richards says. “You just kind of get lost in time and lost in where you are.”  

McKinney Roughs Nature Park

Do you want to ride a UTV? How about go ziplining through the Lost Pines? Or maybe raft down the Colorado River or ride a horse along the park trails? Spanning 1,100 acres, McKinney Roughs is an adventure lover’s dream. Similar to Lake Bastrop North Shore Park, this park is operated by the LCRA and is located in the Lost Pines region

NATIONAL

Castner Range National Monument,
El Paso

IF ANY PARK gets a prize for having the most people fight for it, Castner Range might win. After 52 years of advocacy from the nearby El Paso community, this site finally became a national monument in March 2023 — although it won’t be open to the public for several years.

Encompassing over 6,600 acres of land in West Texas, Castner Range sits just east of Franklin Mountains State Park. Three quarters of the Franklin Mountains are conserved within the state park; Castner contains the other 25 percent. Though it pales in comparison to the size of its park neighbor (by about 20,000 acres!), Castner has a rich past, present and future.

The site was acquired by the U.S. government in 1926 and was used as a firing range for the Army until 1966. Castner has been closed to the public because of safety concerns about leftover firing range debris.

Janae Reneaud Field, the executive director of the Frontera Land Alliance, says this has enabled the site to remain in its pristine state. “Because of [Castner being off-limits], they’ve been able to let it exist and grow on its own without disturbance,” Field says.

The Castner Range contains several features that make it unique beyond its mountainous scenic beauty. It contains the greatest concentration of springs in the Franklin Mountains, supporting vegetation and wildlife. The range acts as a natural collector and distributor of flood water that would otherwise overflow into El Paso, and much of the water is absorbed into the land, replenishing local aquifers. The range is rich in natural and cultural resources, with several archeological sites and rare plants, including the showy Mexican gold poppy that covers the lower slopes in spring. Additionally, Castner provides intact examples of alluvial fans, which are landforms created by water erosion at the canyon mouth.

Field says these unique aspects of the land are exactly what make it a target for external threats and potential development. It wasn’t until President Joe Biden designated it as a national monument that this land was permanently protected from development.

The future for Castner remains open as the Army and Fort Bliss — the stewards of the land — plan to clear the space of dangerous debris while ensuring its ecosystems remain intact. In six or more years, the Army intends to open a hiking trail to the public.

When Castner opens to the public, Field expects the next challenge will be encouraging visitors to respect the area, both for their safety and for preservation of the land’s integrity.

“People haven’t been allowed on there, so by opening it up to people at all, you are changing how that land has operated for years,” Field says. “It’s going to be important that people respect nature in the way it is right now so it stays in balance.”

Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument

When there are mammoths, there are mammoth hunters. This Panhandle site served as a quarry for flint, which mammoth hunters used to make tools dating as far back as 13,000 years ago. People of the High Plains continued to collect the flint from this site for thousands of years.