In 1832, Dr. Francis F. Wells—a member of Stephen F. Austin’s Old 300—founded a town along a bend of the Navidad River, which eventually became known as Texana.

This was the western most settlement of Austin.

Cindy Baker is the interpretive ranger at Lake Texana State Park. She says Texana was a thriving community; it was in a good location, had abundant natural resources, and a shallow water port. It could have been great, if not for some short sightedness.

Two brothers showed up and offered for 100-thousand dollars to buy the town. Mr. Wells said, ‘No. We want 200-thousand. We love our town.’ And the two brothers—wanted to build a deep water port—so they went east, they found the Buffalo Bayou, they dug their deep water port, and they called it Houston.

But that’s not all… In 1883 the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway bypassed the settlement.

A man named Telferner came through and said, ‘For 30-thousand dollars, I’d like to put my railroad stop here in your town.’ And they said, ‘A railroad? We have a port. We don’t want your dirty old railroad.’ He moved seven miles north, and he named that stop after his daughter Edna. Within two years, everyone picked up and moved to Edna.

Making Texana a ghost town… Today the remains of the town sit at the bottom of Lake Texana, created in 1979 when the Lavaca-Navidad River Authority, built a dam on the Navidad River.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Help Texas celebrate its birthday February 27 & 28, where it all started: Washington-on-the-Brazos SHS.

It’s a totally free weekend for visitors that come to the park.

Janice Campbell is an interpreter at Independence Hall, where the general convention convened March 1 through 17, 174 years ago, and set the groundwork for the Republic of Texas. You can get a sense of what life was like then when you visit the site during the anniversary celebration.

We will have demonstrators demonstrating period crafts and skills here in the park; we will have political speeches, music…just a big birthday celebration for Texas.

Texas Independence Day is March, 2—but we’re celebrating early. Campbell says it’s worth the drive.

You will be driving into and visiting an area where some of the fist settlers came into Texas and settled. This event will highlight, of course, the formation of a nation.

Washington-on-the-Brazos SHS is located in a beautiful part of the state, and easy to find.

We are located off highway 105, about eight miles west of Navasota, and that would put us about 18 miles east of Brenham.

The Washington-on-the-Brazos SHS Texas Independence Day Celebration IS February 27 & 28. There’s more information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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February 27–28, 2010 — Washington-on-the-Brazos SHS — Texas Independence Day Celebration — Free, two-day historic event celebrating the 174th anniversary of Texas Independence. Visit Independence Hall and hear the story of the 1836 Convention. Also visit Barrington Living History Farm, the recreated 1850s farm of Dr. Anson Jones, last President of the Republic of Texas where costumed interpreters tell the story of life on a mid 19th century cotton farm. The Star of the Republic Museum, which focuses on the times of the Republic of Texas, will also be open during this important weekend. Enjoy the work of various artisans demonstrating their crafts, and on Sunday, enjoy a slice of our Texas-sized birthday cake. Accessible for the mobility and visually impaired. 10 AM-5 PM (936) 878-2214.

Texas Independence Day is March 2. And Washington on the Brazos is where it all started.

This town was chosen as the site of the general convention, which met on March 1, 1836, and adjourned on March 17.

Janice Campbell, an interpreter at Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site, says those seventeen days in 1836, paved the way for Texas future.

In those seventeen days, the elected delegates that came here, they declared their independence from Mexico; they wrote a constitution; and they elected some officers for a government. So, I guess you could say the groundwork of the government of the Republic of Texas was created right here in Washington.

Campbell says one cannot help but feel a deep connection to the past when visiting Washington-on-the-Brazos.

It’s pretty awesome to be able to walk out there, and walk along the main thoroughfare of the town and know that we are walking in the footsteps of history…right here in Washington.

Washington-on-the-Brazos SHS plans to celebrate Texas’ independence the last weekend in February. We’ll tell you about the festivities tomorrow.

It will mark the 174 anniversary of the signing of the Texas declaration of Independence.

Find details about this and other state park events on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Buffalo soldiers were heroes in their time; examples of courage and hard work. But their accomplishments, seldom taught in classrooms, leave many young African American students, like Greg McClanahan, with a limited sense of their history.

They didn’t teach us nothing in school but that we were slaves. They didn’t teach us that we were heroes or nothing. In history, all you ever heard about was slaves this, and slaves that. You didn’t hear about no black heroes.

McClanahan attends public school in Kerrville, where he met Buffalo Soldier reenactors from Parks and Wildlife.

What we are doing is taking the legacy of the Buffalo Soldier into the cities and into the schools. And we feel that sharing this story, that we can instill some pride and some resolve in them.

Ken Pollard coordinates Buffalo Soldiers Heritage & Community Outreach for Parks and Wildlife. He said he found out about the Buffalo Soldiers as an adult, but wished he’d known about them earlier.

My relatives and kinfolk were cowboys, man. We didn’t have any black cowboys or soldiers, you know, to really look up to. For me, to have the black heroes there when I was growing up, that sense of pride would have been instilled in me. But if I had grown up with that—they would have been my heroes.

Find information about Buffalo Soldiers Heritage & Community Outreach on the TPW website.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

[military maneuvers] Establish, fade, roll under actuality & script.

[singing] I was once a captured slave. Now I’m just a black man who came to be….[fade and play under script]

In the 19th Century, Black men who served in the 9th and 10th Regiments of Cavalry and 24th and 25th Regiments of Infantry of the United States Army were known as…

I am a Buffalo Soldier!

It’s said the Indians whom they fought during the Indian Wars gave troops the name because of their hair texture and their courage and ferocity in battle.

He feared and respected the buffalo. And he learned to fear and respect the black soldier as well.

That’s Buffalo Soldier reenactor, John Olivera, who says Buffalo soldiers played a major role in settling Texas.

Seventy-five percent of the soldiers that settled this area were Buffalo Soldiers. The only white men that were with them were the commanding officers. Almost all of the forts were manned and built by Buffalo Soldiers.

Texas Parks & Wildlife Department offers Texas Buffalo Soldier Outdoor Educational Programs. Find their schedule on the Parks and Wildlife website.

The Buffalo Soldiers fought not only the Indians, and outlaws, but racism and prejudice. We had a job to do, and we done it.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

The custom of decorating trees for Christmas took root in German villages during the sixteenth century.

A lot of Germans, as you know, settled Texas. And they brought a tradition with them of the tabletop Christmas tree.

Cynthia Brandimarte is program director for Texas historic sites.

When you look at interior photographs of Texas houses, you see many tabletop Christmas trees ornamented for the season, particularly in German households in the late nineteenth century Texas.

Ornaments were handmade then, and small gifts often dangled from branches. Eventually, the tabletop conifer gave way to larger trees that became “floor models,” and the decorations sometimes mirrored the day’s events.

You saw more and more seven or eight feet [tall] trees that were placed on the floor. And because we had just ended the Spanish American war in victory, there was a fashion in the early part of the twentieth century to decorate trees with a few American flags here and there. We have photographic evidence for that.

What kinds of ornaments will hang from your tree this year? Tell us about them at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show… we record our series at the Production Block in Austin, Texas…Joel Block engineers our program.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

There is something magical about how stars peer through the bare branches of trees in winter. [Twinkle SFX] And Monument Hill & Kreische Brewery State Historic Sites in La Grange duplicate this celestial wonder during their annual trail of lights.

The park is lit up with very beautiful lights all around the trail—it’s about a quarter mile walking trail, including a trip through the house—the old Kreische House—where we have entertainment, and refreshments, and Santa Claus is here; and all the families and kids can come and enjoy a beautiful setting for a Christmas Celebration.

Site superintendent, Dennis Smith, says the park’s location adds a special feature to the trail of lights.

Our park sits on a 200-foot bluff that overlooks the river and overlooks the City of La Grange. And just the night view from up here, looking over down to La Grange, and the beautiful setting of the lights in the park are absolutely spectacular.

A generation of Texans has enjoyed this holiday event, and so can you.

Our trail of lights program is open to the public. There’s a cost: three dollars per person thirteen years old and older, and one dollar for children between the ages of three and twelve.

Children under the age of three get in free. The trail is open December 5, 11, 12, 18 and 19. Visit passportotexas.org for complete details.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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December 5, 11, 12, 18, 19, 2009 — Monument Hill & Kreische Brewery SHS — Trail of Lights — Enjoy a fantastic quarter-mile trail illuminated with thousands of lights that decorate the Monument Hill and Kreische House portions of our park. Walk a trail overlooking the town of La Grange. Experience the more traditionally decorated 1850s-era German home of H.L. Kreische, bedecked in Christmas splendor, in a Texas-German style. Bring your children to tell secrets to Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus and enjoy the genuine seasonal hospitality of the Friends of Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery, who sponsor the event. No pets please. 6-7:45 p.m.; fees $3 adults, $1 children 12 and under (979) 968-5658.

CLICK HERE to watch a video about the park.

You’re hiking in a state park, and spy something unusual on the side of the trail. You stop to get a closer look, and discover a very old knife. The temptation may be to scoop it up and give it a place of honor on your fireplace mantel. But, Margaret Howard says — that would be illegal.

There’s a particular state law that protects the archeology, and it’s called the Antiquities Code. And it really does protect every single item in our parks that is greater than fifty years old.

Howard is the archeology survey team leader at Parks and Wildlife. Artifacts found in state parks help tell the story of how the land was used, and by whom.

We like to say that these objects belong to all Texans, not any particular Texan. And I think most people would feel bad if they thought that they had taken something that was part of a story and put it on their mantel where it just becomes an object, and its tale is lost.

If you were to find an artifact in a state park, leave it where you found it; it could be part of a known story, or a new story.

And try to alert park personnel and then have them come back. They can make a record of it that we can add to the record we have. If it’s something that we already know about, it expands what we know. And there is, as you said, the chance of discovering something new. But it’s critically important where it was found. And the temptation is to pick something up, and look at it and carry it back.

Learn more about Texas antiquities on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

That’s our show for today …For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

The ecological regions of Texas are diverse — something the Parks and Wildlife archaeological team knows well.

Our team has to become proficient in all of those different areas, and there are very different ways to find the archeology of those areas.

Margaret Howard is archeology survey team leader at Parks and Wildlife. Some areas of the state give up their secrets more easily than others.

In the Pineywoods, it’s deep below the pine needle blanket that’s on the ground;’ it’s very well preserved but it’s hard to find. Out in West Texas, it often shows on the surface, so it’s easy to find, but then it’s very vulnerable to erosion, or even vandalism.

Even though there are more than a million acres of parkland to survey, knowing where to look for artifacts is easier than you might think.

Humans are just not as different as you might want to imagine. We’ve had a number of cases where ancient campgrounds were below the campgrounds that are used today. We are humans; we’re walking across the ground the way that humans once did. Humans are thirsty, humans need to eat, they like shade and protection from the weather. And so, if you look at those aspects of the landscape, you can figure out where people tended to live.

Learn how Parks and Wildlife archeologists use the clues left behind from peoples’ activities to gain insight in Texas’ past when you log onto the Texas Parks and Wildlife Website.

That’s our show for today …For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Fifteen years ago, on the sixtieth anniversary of Caddo Lake State Park, a time capsule was buried at the site.

I wasn’t here, so I don’t know what’s in that time capsule; it’s going to be very interesting to dig it up.

Superintendent Todd Dickinson says July 4th, the 75th anniversary of the park, staff will unearth that capsule.

That’s correct. We’ll be unearthing a time capsule which was placed at the sixtieth anniversary, and we’re trying to find as many people as we can that were here at the sixtieth anniversary, so they can participate in this.

They intend to rebury the container with new artifacts, to be opened in 2084, the park’s 150th anniversary; you can help decide what future Texans find.

On this day, we will be gathering items, but we’re not going to actually place [bury] the new time capsule probably until two or three weeks later, once we decide what all’s actually going to go in there.

In addition to images and artifacts from the park and region, Dickinson hopes to add something truly special.

There’s a handful of people that were here at the grand opening, you know, as children, seventy-five years ago. And. We’re going to try really hard to have them be here on that day and maybe—if they will—put some thoughts down on paper about what they remember and what’s changed over the years. And that would be something that we could include in the time capsule.

So what should go into the time capsule? Log onto passporttotexas.org and let us know; we’ll pass along your suggestions.

That’s our show for today… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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July 4, 2009 — Caddo Lake SP & WMA — 75th Anniversary — Originally celebrated on July 4, 1934, the park was the first authorized Civilian Conservation Corps project for a Texas state park. The day s events will include the unearthing of a time capsule buried at the 60th Anniversary, plus we will be gathering items to place in a new time capsule. This new capsule will be opened at the 100th Anniversary Celebration. Also, there will be traveling exhibits depicting historical information about both the Caddo Indians and the CCC. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. (903) 679-3351.