The Pine Needle (Silsbee, Tex.), Vol. 4, No. 40, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 5, 1967 Page: 4 of 8
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PAGE FOUR
THE PINE NEEDLE
The Lasl Wilderness
Pine Needle Note-
This article was printed in the Texas Observer and should be of interest to all friends
of the Big Thicket. The story of the fight to preserve this natural wonderland for the
benefit of the generations to come is being carried all over America. Hardin County
and Southeast Texas are receiving more publicity now than at any time in history.
Pete Gunter
Indians went there from as tar away
as Colorado and New Mexico to hunt its
abundant game; they called it the Big
Woods. Spanish padres described it as a
forest so thick that it could not be travel-
led afoot and reported that Indians hunt-
ing there went by canoe, since there were
no paths by land. The first pioneers, un-
able to penetrate the dense thickets,
turned back and sought a new route west.
East Texas appeared to them to be a gi-
gantic jungle, halting them wherever they
turned. They called it the Big Thicket.
Settlers soon came to realize that the
Big Thicket was not a single, massive
jungle. Impenetrable thickets, it is true,
closely followed the banks of innumerable
streams; but above the swampy bottom-
lands sloped hillsides forested with long-
leaf pine, where deep shade and pine
needles choked out undergrowth. Further
north were open beech forests and broad
savannahs, still easier to traverse. The Big
Thicket was many diferent kinds of coun-
try; it was as diverse as the legends that
were to grow up around it.
In spite of plentiful supplies of lumber,
water, and game, the region was never
densely settled. For over a century it re-
mained wild and remote, a last refuge for callv Western vegetation not found there
bear, panther and hunted men. Sam Hous- is sagebrush, which he has tried unsuc-
ton planned to hide his army there if his cessfully to grow. Magnolia, tupelo, sweet
attack on Santa Anna failed. Indians, run- gum. bald cypress, and palmetto palms
away slaves, bandits, and thieves were grow in the Thicket, alongside yucca, mes-
safe in its cypress swamps and cane quite, several species of cactus and even
brakes. Deserters hid out in the Thicket tumbleweed. At the same time, a 60-inch
Hiiring the Civil War, easily evading Con- annual rainfall and gulf climate make the
federate troops sent in to capture them. Big Thicket a meeting-point of subtropical
Convicts still stand a fair chance of es- and temperate vegetation. At least 21 vari-
caping if they can reach the Thicket eties of wild orchids grow in the area, as
ahead of the bloodhounds. w,eH as f°ur °f A“eri,ca's f,ive insect-eating
The Big Thicket’s precise location is pla"ts; b,ut tbe Tb,c^t also, boas‘s t'ecs
hard to pinpoint. There are at least ten and Pla"ts natlve to the coo‘ APPalacluan
maps locating the Original Big Thicket; nighandS'
doubtless more will be produced before The Big Thicket Association advertises
controversy. over the region dies down, the area as the "Biological Crossroads of
Most authorities agree that the Thicket North America." The slogan is certainly
initially contained 3.5 million acres in justified by the Thicket’s plant life, for no
southeast Texas, centering in Polk and other region of comparable botanical di-
Liberty counties and spreading almost to versity can be found in the United States.
Houston and Beaumont; all concede that While the extraordinary variety of its
less than one-tenth of this acreage re- vegetation has drawn naturalists from
mains today. In his recent Farewell to every leading American university, it is
Texas William O. Douglas concludes that less generally known .that the Thicket
the Big Thicket now contains 300,000 produces some of the world’s largest
acres and pleads for its inclusion in the trees. in or near the present Big Thicket
national park system before lumber com- grow the world’s largest holly tree,
panies and real estate speculators destroy eastern red cedar, Chinese tallow, red bay,
it entirely. yaupon, black hickory, sparkleberry,
Douglas is not alone in his concern. For sweetleaf, and two-wing silverbell. All of
decades the Big Thicket Association has these "champion” trees are fairly recent
struggled to bring the area to the atten- discoveries, and it is probable that more
tion of scientists and conservationists wju be found. Less than a year ago the
and to make its potential value known to world’s tallest cypress tree was discov-
political leaders. Over the last five years ered in bottomlands along the Trinity Riv-
these efforts have begun to bear fruit. er. a cypress said to be still larger stands
The Audubon Society, the Wilderness So- back in an inaccessible swamp, but no one
ciety, the Sierra Club and other conserva- haS gone back in to measure it: salt water
tionist organizations have begun to show overflow from oil wells killed it over a
a serious interest in the Big Thicket, and decade ago
public interest is growing. Senator Ralph Game law were forccd in Ae
Yarborough s recent introduction of Sen- Thicket mdl 1964 and poaching will for
ate Bill 3929 to establish a Big Thicket a , time remain a way of Kfe there. It
National Park climaxes years of effort on is something 0f a miracle, therefore, that
the part of conservationists But it aiso the rcgion conlinues to support innum-
begms a struggle against lumber compan- erable varieties of wild lifFe Bear and
les and other interests who bitterly op- pan,her, once common, are now seen only
pose any effort to make the region mto rarely ocelots and jaguars both native
.a national park. ... to Mexico, were once reported in the
In some ways this opposition is under- Thicket bu, none has been si hted re.
standable. The Big Thicket contains no cen,| None,heiess, thick woods produce
ofty mountains.deep canyons or broad an ablmdant crop of deer and smaller
lakes. It is too hot for hiking from June i„ciudi„g red and grey fox, grey
through September and too wet for camp- in.el fox squirre, flying squirrel,
ing out much of the rest of the year. It mink ott muskrat. nutria, bobcat, lynx,
contains few sites of historical import- raccoon, possum, swamp rabbit and many
ance, and is ahnost unheard of outside others Dempsie Henley, president of the
exas. What, then, justifies the expense g- ybicket Association, insists there are
of turning it mto a national park? stfi rarer animals in the Thicket. In his
» forthcoming book, The Big Thicket Story,
The UNPARALLELED rich- he recounts the story of a Houston busi-
ness yind diversity of the region’s plant nessman who, unable to domesticate an
life provides one of the most convincing Australian wolf dog given to him as a
replies to this question. Almost all the present, dropped the huge animal off on
trees and plants common to the deep a deserted Thicket road. The dog loped
South flourish in the Thicket. Yet Lance into dense underbrush and disap-
Rosier, the region's official, self-taught peared, and now homesteaders are report-
naturalist, points out that the only typi- hig the ilepredations of a wolf pack led
THE BIG THICKET — This is the 35,000-acre plan proposed by the US Dept, of
the Interior for preservation of the Big Thicken in southeast Texas. Sen. Ralph
Yarborough has a counter-proposal that would set aside 75,000 acres.
by a gigantic black dog. Equally surpris-
ing, a colony of monkeys were discovered
living in the Thicket in the fall of 1966.
LEAST 300 bird species live
year-round in the Big Thicket; how many
species of migratory birds live there part
of the year is not known. The area is one
of the major resting places along the Gulf
Coast for migratory birds of all kinds, and
hundreds of diferent species have been
reported. In all, the Big Thicket contains
seven kinds of woodpeckers, four kinds of
owls, the bald eagle, three kinds of hawks,
and an almost unsurpassed variety of
water birds: little blue heron, black-
crowned night heron, yellow-crowned
night heron, roseate spoonbill, snowy
egret, wood duck, American egret, green
heron, kingfisher, and water turkey. Yet
the roadrunner is also found there, along
with many other typically Western birds.
Besides serving as a sanctuary for mi-
gratory birds, the Big Thicket shelters
several rare bird species. The last known
ivory-billed woodpeckers were sighted in
north Florida over a decade ago. Bigger
than a crow, gaudily plumed, the ivory-
bills can live only in vast tracts of virgin
timber—a natural condition now vanish-
ing faster than Harold Stassen's last cam-
paign support. Until this spring, when an
undetermined number were found nesting
in the Big Thicket, the ivory-billed wood-
pecker was generally conceded to be ex-
tinct. The Audubon Society has sent out
a special message to its national member-
ship. But no one will say precisely where
the ivbry-billed woodpeckers are located,
for fear of local marksmen.
There has been only one attempt to
catalogue the plants and animals of the
Thicket. Park’s and Cory’s Biological Sur-
vey oj the Big Thicket Region (1938), an
incomplete and tentative study, pleads for
extensive scientific research in the region.
It is safe to say that much of this research
has not been carried out and that the
scientific value of the Big Thicket is only
beginning to be understood. It is esti-
mated that at least a thousand varieties
of algae and fungi remain to be found and
classified, as well as numberless insect
species, while new plant species are still
regularly discovered. Recent research in
the Thicket also includes the quest for
plants useful in treating diabetes, cancer,
and heart disease. The Thicket’s entire
botanical structure is as interesting to
scientists as its specific plant species.
William O. Douglas points out that trees
in the area differ sufficiently from near
relatives found elsewhere to form distinct,
unique species; for reasons yet to be dis-
covered, the Thicket is a "region of criti-
cal speciation," where new species emerge
as old are cancelled out. The Thicket’s re-
capitulation of plant growth patterns
OCTOBER 5, 1967
found in the Appalachian highlands pro-
vides still, another scientific enigma. To
date no one has offered a convincing ex-
planation of these widely separated "eco-
logical parallels.” Taxonomists, ecologists,
ethnologists, geneticists, botanists, orni-
thologists, entomologists—to name a few
—have much to learn from the Big
Thicket; they have much to lose, if it is
destroyed.
To catalogue the history, plants, ani-
mals, birds and scientifically valuable fea-
tures of the Thicket is still to have given
no impression of its strangeness or its
beauty. There are deep woods where ferns
grow thickly on mossed tree trunks and
giant palmetto palms stand higher than
pine saplings; there are century-old log
cabins, in neglected clearings; there are
bayous where turtles slide, off fallen
logs and alligators submerge suddenly in
dark, muddy water; there are tree-bor-
dered meadows thick with wildflowers
and jungles so dense they can be pene-
trated only by hacking a path with a long-
bladed knife; there are pine barrens, yau-
pon thickets, beech forests and cypress
swamps where no road has entered and no
axe echoed. And in the dying crossroads
towns there are old men who will tell you
stories of epic bear hunts on still Octo-
ber nights when dark shapes moved in
the palmetto thickets and dogs bayed, dis-
tant and excited, in the bright moonlight.
^^N AREA OF such outstanding
natural wealth and beauty ought to be
preserved for future generations. Whether
it can be saved in time is not certain.
Lumber companies have long fought con-
»ervation efforts in the Big Thicket; to-
day they are joined by land speculators,
who hope to turn the area into a sort of
backwoods surburbia, and by pipeline
companies, which enjoy the right to build
pipelines through any terrain whatever,
regardless of public opinion.
Lance Rosier and other members of the
Big Thicket Association believe that cer-
tain of these interests are trying to make
the Thicket unfit for inclusion in the na-
tional park system through intentional
destruction. Four years ago Rosier found
that an entire rookery, containing hun-
dreds of herons, egrets, and their young,
had been killed by airplanes spraying
timber to kill hardwoods and make room
for pine. Rosier is convinced that the inci-
dent was not an accident: there are no
trees of any kind in the rookery, which is
perfectly visible from the air. More re-
cently, a thousand-year-old magnolia, esti-
mated to be the oldest in the South, was
found dead, drilled in four places and
poisoned with arsenate of lead. "Whoever
did it,” Rosier concludes mournfully,
“knew what he was doing. This wasn’t
just boys playing pranks.” In his forth-
coming Big Thicket Story Dempsie Henley
recounts a trip with William O. Douglas
through areas of the Thicket where des-
tructive lumbering practices have inex-
plicably accelerated:
“As we continued through the Kirby Lum-
ber Company lands, it was obvious that a
major hardwood cutting project was under
way for the entire area. This area had been
recommended for preservation in my earlier
study report to the governor of Texas. Dr.
Correll and others on the tour had told
Justice Douglas that this particular area
was probably one of the choicest botanical
areas in the Big Thicket, and despite the
apparent efforts of the lumber company
to cut the area out, it still had to be classi-
fied as having ‘national botanical signifi-
cance’ ... We again noticed that many of
the magnolia trees that had been cut were
actually in the public right-of-ways. Certain-
ly the lumber companies nor anyone else
had any right to cut trees belonging to the
general public.”
To drive home his point, Henley reveals
that most magnolia trees in the Thicket
are used to make railroad ties. At forty
cents per tie, a hundred-year-old mag-
nolia is worth around three dollars and
fifty cents!
Though recommendations—as Henley
mentions—have been made by the Big
Thicket Association to the state of Texas,
Gov. John Connally has done little except
make occasional promises. In the mean-
time two contrasting proposals have been
made in Washington: Senator Yar-
borough’s, which calls for the creation of
a 75,000-acre Big Thicket National Park,
and the Department of the Interior’s,
which tentatively suggests a 35,000-acre
Big Thicket National Monument. Both
plans have obvious drawbacks. It is no
longer possible in the Thicket to find 5,000
contiguous acres of completely untouched
land—the amount of primitive wilderness
legally required to make a region into a
national park; moreover, lumber compan-
ies and other powerful interests may not
oppose a smaller park with quite the de-
monic zeal with which they have fought a
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Barrington, Peggy. The Pine Needle (Silsbee, Tex.), Vol. 4, No. 40, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 5, 1967, newspaper, October 5, 1967; Silsbee , Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth662706/m1/4/: accessed June 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lamar University.