|
 Davis Mountains State Park - Fort Davis, TX Posted by:  WalksfarTX
N 30° 35.972 W 103° 55.752
13R E 602652 N 3385709
In 1923, the Texas State Legislature directed the State Parks Board to investigate the Davis Mountains region. However, Davis Mountains State Park wasn’t established until 1933 with 560 acres largely donated by local landowners.
Waymark Code: WMPQTE
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 10/09/2015
Views: 4
From tpwd website:Davis Mountains State Park was one of the earliest projects for the Texas CCC. Between 1933 and 1935, the CCC built many of the facilities still used in the park today. Among these is the Indian Lodge, a 16-room full-service hotel, including original furnishings. TPWD added 24 more rooms in 1967. The new rooms complemented the original section.
Another CCC-built feature of the park is the five-mile scenic Skyline Drive. The road ascends via switchbacks to the top of a ridge. It ends at a stone overlook shelter, with a “picture window” framing a breathtaking view.
The men of CCC also built a mess hall, recreation hall, and stone picnic tables, fireplaces and steps.
Park Type: Overnight
Activities:
Here you can hike, backpack, mountain bike or ride your own horse, take a scenic drive through the mountains, go camping, stargaze, geocache and study nature.
Park Fees:
$6.00 Day Use
$8.00 Primitive Camping (hike in)
$10.00 Primitive Camping (horseback)
$15.00 Camping w/water
$20.00 Camping w/water & 20/30 amp electricity
$25.00 Camping w/water & 30/50 amp electricity
Indian Lodge is a full-service hotel, with 39 rooms, a restaurant and a swimming pool. The Lodge is within the boundaries of Davis Mountains State Park. Rates vary by season.
Background:
From the http://texascccparks.org/parks/davis-mountains/ website: /
An extensive mountain range provides the setting for one of the most majestic of the state parks and one of the earliest CCC projects in Texas. Work at Davis Mountains State Park commenced in June 1933. / The Texas legislature specifically directed the new State Parks Board in 1923 to investigate the Davis Mountains for a major destination park to attract both overland motorists and train travelers from nearby Marfa and Alpine. But the State Parks Board failed to obtain land donations or appropriations. Then in 1927 the legislature instructed the State Highway Department to build the Davis Mountains State Park Highway on donated right of way, now the Davis Mountains Scenic Loop (State Highways 118 and 166). The new byway construction created much-needed jobs for the region and in the 1930s facilitated construction of McDonald Observatory by the University of Texas on Mount Locke. But by 1933 the Great Depression had so devastated the local ranching economy that landowners at last agreed to donate the initial 560 acres for a state park in Keesey Canyon, along the highway toward Mount Locke. The National Park Service then assisted the design and the CCC built inside the park a five-mile scenic road, carved in switchbacks, ascending to the top of the ridge between Hospital and Keesey Canyons. From this ridge, visitors enjoy breathtaking panoramas, including a view of the 19th-century military installation Fort Davis, which lent the adjacent valley town its name, and McDonald Observatory on a mountaintop to the north. Likely designed by William C. Caldwell, the stone overlook shelter at the top resembles the prototype that National Park Service architect Herbert Maier designed in 1924 for Yosemite National Park, right down to the "picture window" framing a fabulous view for mountain trekkers resting inside the shelter.
Date Established?: 1933
Link to Park: [Web Link]
Additional Entrance Points: Not Listed
|
Visit Instructions:
To log a visit to a waymark in this category, please include the following ...
1. A picture you took at the park.
2. Your favorite activity at the park.
3. How do you like the park.
|