Railways to Trailways
- TrUE Raider Service Break
- Apr 17, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 9, 2019
For CALUE’s first Weekend Service Break Trip we headed to Caprock Canyon State Park (https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/caprock-canyons), about an hour and a half northeast of Lubbock. When we left Friday afternoon, we headed through cotton country to the tiny towns of Quitaque and Turkey. The change of scenery was a nice change from the hustle and bustle of university life. However, this is West Texas. It was so windy that the dust in air was reminiscent of the opening scenes from The Wizard of Oz.
Saturday morning, we began with a tour of the park with Le’Ann, one of the park’s rangers. Caprock Canyon was home to Native American cultures more than 10,000 years ago, including the Folsom and Plainview cultures. Today, the park is home to not only the largest free-roaming Bison herd in the state, but also the Official Bison Herd of the state of Texas. Right now, it is estimated that 180 bison live in the park. Thanks to the conservation efforts of Charles and Mary Ann Goodnight, the bison herd is one of five foundation herds in the United States, saving the species from extinction.
A majority of our weekend was spent helping the park clear brush that slowly encroaches onto the park’s public hiking trails. However, it wasn’t all work and no fun. A hallmark of CALUE Service Trips is education. In order to provide meaningful public service, it is important to understand the importance behind what we are doing. In this case, Le’Ann spent part of her day giving us a tour of the park, not only showing us various facets of the park, but sharing its rich history and contribution to the region – geographically, ecologically, and culturally.
The trailway was one of my favorite parts of the park. As part of the Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway, Burlington Northern built a rail spur near the park in the early 1920s. This spur helped the region export agricultural products to the rest of the country. In 1989,
rail service to the spur ceased. Rails-to-Trails Conservancy helped remove the rails and turn the line into a trailway, spanning a total of 64.25 miles., which is now maintained by the park. Le’Ann took our group along the southern most part of the Trailway, through John Farris Station and Clarity Tunnel.
Knowing the rich history of the trailways and the park made our time in the park a richer experience. Whether we were clearing brush, picking up trash, or pulling weeds around the visitor’s center, we knew the value of what we were contributing to – the sustainability of the park to host roughly 72,000 visitors per year. Visiting a state park allows you to better understand the area in which you live, particularly how a region’s past helps shape the world in which we live today. Caprock Canyon State Park is definitely a Texas treasure worth checking out! And they always need volunteers!
– Willow Sauermilch, graduate student in the College of Media & Communication
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