Eisenhower

U.S. ARMY PHOTO, COURTESY OF EISENHOWER LIBRARY INTERPRETIVE GUIDE EIS ISEENHOWER S TAT E PPA ARK THANK YOU FOR VISITING! EISENHOWER STATE PARK HONORS WORLD WAR II HERO DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER. PROUD OF THE TEXAS-BORN G E N E R A L , T H E T E X A S LEGISLATURE VOTED IN 1947 TO CREATE A NEW PARK BEARING HIS NAME ON THE SOUTH SHORE OF LAKE TEXOMA NEAR HIS BIRTHPLACE IN DENISON. THE PARK OPENED WITH GREAT FANFARE ON MAY 18, 1958 WITH BANDS PLAYING PATRIOTIC SONGS AND A WATER CARNIVAL FEATURING BOAT ARMADAS, We hope you enjoy your visit to Eisenhower State Park. Please help us care for the natural and cultural resources of the park by leaving things as you found them. All the animals, plants and fossils are protected so that everyone can enjoy them. Visit the State Park Store to find souvenirs of your visit. We hope you will visit these other state parks while visiting North Texas: Bonham State Park 1363 State Park 24, Bonham • (903) 583-5022 Ray Roberts Lake State Park – Johnson Branch 100 PW 4153, Valley View • (940) 637-2294 Lake Tawakoni State Park 10822 FM 2475, Wills Point • (903) 560-7123 Visit www.tpwd.texas.gov for more information on these and other Texas state parks and historic sites. Eisenhower State Park 50 Park Road 20, Denison, TX 75020 (903) 465-1956 • www.tpwd.texas.gov/eisenhower/ NAVY FROGMEN AND WATERSKIING EXHIBITIONS. © 2021 TPWD. PWD BR P4503-0032K (7/21) TXDOT TPWD receives funds from the USFWS. TPWD prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, disability, age, and gender, pursuant to state and federal law. To request an accommodation or obtain information in an alternative format, please contact TPWD on a Text Telephone (TTY) at (512) 389-8915 or by Relay Texas at 7-1-1 or (800) 735-2989 or by email at accessibility@tpwd.texas.gov. If you believe you have been discriminated against by TPWD, please contact TPWD, 4200 Smith School Road, Austin, TX 78744, or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office for Diversity and Workforce Management, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041. E I S E N H O W E R S T A T E P A R K THE RED RIVER TEXOMA CROSSROADS Lake Texoma provides an abundance of recreational opportunities, from camping and hiking to boating and fishing. Visitors enjoy the wooded campsites, the rugged bluffs, scenic coves and the rocky lakeshore. This intriguing landscape results from a blending of prairie openings within the woodlands of the Oak Woods and Prairies region. Opportunities for excellent fishing can be found along the scenic coves where largemouth and smallmouth bass, striped bass and channel catfish thrive. Texoma is the only lake in Texas where striped bass spawn. A lucky angler caught the 121.5-pound Texas state record blue catfish in Lake Texoma. Remnants of tallgrass prairie with stands of little bluestem and Indiangrass can be found in open areas of the park, while the more wooded areas offer shade and shelter underneath oaks, elms, and the bois d’arc tree. The Red River adds a riparian element to the mix. The shoreline attracts over 170 species of birds, including the great blue heron and osprey. Bald eagles winter in the park from October through March. The final dramatic feature creating this landscape is an upside-down bowl-shaped buckle in the earth known as the Preston Anticline that thrusts several layers of clays, shales and limestones to the surface, revealing the layers left by an ancient Cretaceous ocean dating to the days of the dinosaurs. Spiral shaped ammonites and other fossils embedded in these layers provide clues to the ocean life of the past. T he Red River marks the northern entrance to Texas. It is more than a mere river, serving as a border, a boundary, a transportation corridor, and a source of sustenance for people and wildlife. The Red River flows from the Texas Panhandle to the Mississippi River, carrying the rich red colors of the Permian sandstones of Palo Duro Canyon toward the sea. Early Spanish explorers called the river “Rio Rojo.” On an 1853 U.S. Army expedition, W. B. Parker observed that “the river takes its name from the color of the water, which is a dark maroon, full of sediment and very unpalatable.” Here the river marked the international boundary between Spain and France and later between the United States and Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas. Later the river separated the new state of Texas from Choctaw and Chickasaw lands in Indian Territory which eventually became the new state of Oklahoma. Many early settlers entered Texas by crossing the Red River at Colbert’s Ferry to the east or Preston to the west. Trail drivers on the Shawnee Trail herded cattle north across the Red River at Preston Bend, now hidden under the waters of Lake Texoma. In 1944, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed Denison Dam, creating the 89,000-acre Lake Texoma. The dam captures the waters of the Red River and its Oklahoma tributary, the Washita, creating the 12th-largest reservoir in the United States. Bald eagle UNITED STATES ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS TXDOT This spiral-shaped fossil comes from an ammonite, a predatory mollusk that resembled a squid.