Caddo Lake State Park, 3/13-14/18

60. Scampsite #37, our site was the end one in our area, so was very quiet.  It was also lush with green grass, moss, and lots of wee birds chirping, but none that sat still long enough to identify. This lake is the only natural lake in Texas - it actually was created by a logjam (called the Great Raft) in 1799 on the Red River, until steamboat captain Henry Shreve removed the logjam by 1873 so that the river could be navigable by steamboats.  However, once the Great Raft was totally removed, the river lost enough water that steamboats could no longer navigate it, so by 1914 a dam was reconstructed.  The current dam was constructed in the 1970's. Interestingly, Caddo Lake never went totally dry, due to sedimentary deposits that created a bowl shape at the lower end of the lake.
We had intended to rent canoes and paddle the bayou, but there were torrential rains a few weeks earlier, so the boat dock was under water and the boats were locked away for safekeeping.  So we hiked instead - there is a good hill to climb, complete with a CCC-built pavilion and a stone grill nearby.  One of the camping areas (the tent one) was also flooded, and our area restroom was in the process of being rebuilt, so the park had a trailer of individual toilet-shower combo rooms for use!  Again, it was lovely to see the parks being upgraded and maintained.
In the morning we woke up to 33 degree temperatures - yikes!  We heard barred owls caterwauling twice, but didn't actually see many birds at all.

Scampsite 37

Flooded boat ramp area.

CCC pavilion.

CCC pavilion. 

CCC grill near pavilion.

Flooded campground.

Fishing pier at dusk.

Morning at Caddo Lake.

Nearby attractions: The town of Jefferson is a county seat and is a lovely town.  There are lots of antique shops, a great barbecue restaurant (Joseph's Riverport BBQ - on the most recent Texas Monthly Best BBQ list), a Carnegie library that is still a library and sells used books if you need one, gobs of B&B's (it's the Texas B&B Capitol y'all), and Steven Jay Gould's Train Car, to name just a few things.  Jefferson used to be a river port on the Red River after the logjam was removed

Marshall is also nearby and has a fabulous old courthouse that is now the county museum.  We also needed to restock our coffee and found a good coffee shop that sold us fresh ground coffee (Joe Pine Coffee Co.).