Davy Crockett National Forest
Davy Crockett National Forest is in southeast Texas between the towns of Lufkin and Crockett, Texas. It is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service local headquarters in Lufkin. There are local ranger district offices located in Ratcliff.
The forest, part of the Piney Woods ecoregion, covers a total of in two counties - Houston and Trinity.
Davy Crockett National Forest, which is bordered on the northeast by the Neches River and is located around Kennard, Texas, includes the Ratcliff Lake. The area is pine-hardwood woodlands with flat to gently rolling terrain.
Uses
The national forest is managed on a multiple-use philosophy and are used for lumbering, grazing, oil production, hunting, and recreation. In fiscal year 1994, 93.8 million board feet of timber was harvested from the national forests in Texas, providing 2,098 jobs and $73,108,000 in income to the surrounding Texas communities. In addition, Texas ranchers with special permits could graze their cattle in the national forests. At the Davy Crockett National Forest, 386 head of cattle grazed in fiscal year 1994.Recreational facilities within the national forest at the Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area include a bathhouse, camping, picnicking and swimming areas, and boat ramps.
The Four C National Recreation Trail runs through the northern third of the national forest between the Neches Bluff Overlook and Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area in Houston County. The Neches Bluff Overlook provides a panoramic view of the bottomlands at the north end of the forest. From there the trail winds southward about 20 miles passing through the Big Slough Wilderness for a couple of miles along the way. It is named after the Central Coal and Coke Company, which logged the region from 1901 until all the forest had been clear cut in 1920. Portions of the trail now follow routes, berms, and levees that the Central Coal and Coke Company built for small scale railroads and trams to hall logs. Ratcliff Lake functioned as a log pond and remnants of the sawmill still stand in the Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area.
The Slough Wilderness Area was established by Congress in the Texas Wilderness Act of 1984, prohibiting future timber harvest, and allowing natural forces to shape the area. It is located on the northeast margin of the national forest. Most of the 3,639 acre wilderness lies in the floodplain of the Neches River, which defines 11 miles of its eastern border. Large portions of the area are occasionally submerged during periods of heavy rain and flooding. The most recent logging within the Big Slough Wilderness occurred in 1968, mostly pines in peripheral areas, however parts of the area have never been logged. “The Big Slough”, is an old, abandoned channel of the river that winds through the center of the wilderness west of the Neches River, forming an island between the slough and the river. The area supports approximately five square miles of hardwood, bottomland, old growth forest. About two thirds of the wilderness is dominated by hardwood forest, a quarter by shortleaf pine and loblolly pine, with the remaining portions being a mix of hardwood and pine or open areas of swamp and water. Just a few of the hardwoods growing in the wilderness include River birch, bitternut hickory, sugarberry, American sweetgum, American sycamore, swamp chestnut oak, cherrybark oak, Shumard oak, American black elderberry, black willow, American elm, Texas cedar elm, The national champion planer tree grows in the wilderness.
Fauna
A few of the reptiles documented in Houston and Trinity counties include lizards such as five-lined skink, ground skink, green anole, and prairie lizard and turtles such as eastern snapping turtle, eastern musk turtle, Mississippi mud turtle, Mississippi map turtle, ornate box turtle, and spiny softshell turtle. Although not particularly abundant in the forest, American alligator may be present in any lake, river, bayou or large body of permanent water in east Texas.Five species of venomous snakes occur throughout the forest of southeast Texas: Texas coralsnake, eastern copperhead, northern cottonmouth, and less commonly timber rattlesnake, and western pygmy rattlesnake. Some of the harmless species include ring-necked snake, speckled kingsnake, eastern coachwhip, plain-bellied watersnake, western ratsnake, rough greensnake, and Dekay’s brownsnake.
Amphibian species known from the counties include bronze frog, gray treefrog, eastern narrow-mouthed toad, and Hurter’s spadefoot toad, mole salamander, central newt, and western dwarf salamander.
The fish of Davey Crockett National Forest are largely associated with the Neches River drainage, although a few small creeks on the western edge of the forest drain into the Trinity River. A few of the species documented in the Neches River drainage include chestnut lamprey, alligator gar, longnose gar, flathead catfish, redfin pickerel, tadpole madtom, spotted bass, white bass, Flier, orangespotted sunfish, and longear sunfish. A few of the smaller species include red shiner, Mississippi silvery minnow, emerald shiner, western starhead topminnow, blackstripe topminnow, scaly sand darter, and mud darter.