Lake Mineral Wells State Park/Ft. Wolters, Texas
Research Natural Area
Lake Mineral Wells State Park is located in Parker County, Texas, just east of Mineral Wells. The Park includes some 3200 acres and adjoins the nearly 4000 acre Fort Wolters, a Texas National Guard training facility. Old growth remnants of the Western Cross Timbers survive locally in both the Park and at Fort Wolters. An excellent example can be visited by the public in the Penitentiary Hollow area near the southeastern margin of the State Park (see photos above). This area includes impressive examples of old growth post oak and cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia).
Click here to visit the website for Lake Mineral Wells State Park.
Ft. Wolters is located in Parker and Palo Pinto counties near the transition between the Cross Timbers and Blackland prairie biogeographical provinces (Kuchler 1964). This site is not open to the public and has been heavily utilized for military training since World War II. However, some relatively undisturbed old-growth Cross Timber remnants still remain on the Fort (see the link to .pdf report below). Surveys by the University of Arkansas Tree-Ring Laboratory indicate that some 89 hectares (222 acres) of old-growth Cross Timbers remain in several small parcels at Ft. Wolters. Training area IV, located in the northeast sector of Ft. Wolters, contains the largest parcel of remaining old-growth (95.7 acres). Much of this site is a level open-grown woodland, with post oaks of all age classes and a dense understory of grasses. The tree species present at this location include post oak (Quercus stellata), blackjack oak (Quercus marilandica), cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia), Texas ash (Fraxinus texensis), eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), Hawthorne (Crataegus sp.), Chittamwood (Cotinus obovatus), and hackberry (Celtis laevigata).
