The Promised-Land View
Why settlers named the ridge next door after the mountain of Moses.
The Land & Its Stories
Why this ground.
People have been choosing this corner of Navarro County for more than 10,000 years: for its creeks, its prairie, the ridge a few miles east, and lately for its night sky. These are the stories we found when we went looking. Each one is marked by what backs it: the record, someone's account, or legend.
- On the record
- documented.
- As told
- an account we can credit to a person or a publication, not confirmed by the record.
- Legend
- told locally, unproven.
The View
Red Lights in Unison
What you're seeing on the western horizon after dark, and why it blinks as one.
The Ground Worth Fighting Over
Ground Worth Fighting Over
Surveyors under fire, a feud that waited eighteen years, and a gunfighter who taught school.
Legends of the Ridge
The Water
Why the Water Stays
Sandy soil covers this ground, but about eight inches down it turns to dense clay that passes water some thirty times slower. Deeper, and just to the northwest, lies Kemp Clay: the floor of a sea from the last age of the dinosaurs. Rain soaks in, meets the clay, and slows. That is likely why ponds here hold water.
Sources: USDA NRCS Web Soil Survey; USGS state geologic map.
People of the Creeks
The creeks here drain to Richland Creek, and on to the Trinity River. People have lived along that water for more than 10,000 years. Archaeologists recorded over 300 prehistoric sites along Richland Creek, from an Ice Age spear point to camps that followed acorns, deer, fish and mussels. Tawakoni, Kichai, Waco, Caddo, Comanche and others later hunted this country.
Sources: USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; Raab & Moir, Conservation Archaeology of the Richland/Chambers Dam and Reservoir (SMU, 1981); Love, History of Navarro County (1933).
The Living Land
What the Prairie Was
This is the Northern Blackland Prairie. Its native grasses included little bluestem, big bluestem, Indiangrass and switchgrass, shaped by fire and bison. Of the Blackland Prairie's roughly 12 million original acres, only about 5,000 remain in true prairie condition. Farther east, the land turns to post oak savanna. Where fire no longer runs, mesquite and redcedar are spreading fast.
Sources: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (Wildscapes: Blackland Prairies); Texas A&M Forest Service.
Who Else Walks Here
In 2019, the state noted several years of white-tailed deer growth in Navarro County. Wild hogs reached the American mainland with de Soto in 1539; the ranch's cameras have caught a sounder of five or six. Coyotes, bobcats, foxes and wild turkeys share the county. Mountain lions? None confirmed here in four decades of records. The nearest, in Dallas County in 2020, was likely a young male passing through.
Sources: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (2019 deer-season release; Wild Pigs; confirmed mountain lion records).
Neighbours
Pursley Country
The nearest named community is Pursley, between Richland and Pin Oak creeks. Probably named for W. H. Pursley, who settled some 1,200 acres after the Civil War, it had a post office from 1872 to 1907. Its history records "fine timber and fertile fields."
Sources: Handbook of Texas Online, "Pursley, TX" (TSHA).
Whose land, whose story
Whose Land This Was First
Long before settlers named the ridge for a view of the Promised Land, this country was already someone's home.
Freedom's Ground & What the Lake Covered
Who worked this land, who came to own it, and what the water gave back.
Corrections: if something here is wrong, or you know more, write to [email protected].