Palo Pinto Mountains State Park Partners

Palo Pinto Mountains State Park Partners (PPMSPP) was established to help preserve, protect, and improve the natural beauty of Palo Pinto Mountains State Park. We are a volunteer-based, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization working in partnership with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD).

About Us

The goal for PPMSPP is to work with TPWD in a cooperative relationship that helps them carry out their goals. We depend on the energetic input from people who care about the park, desire to see it funded/developed in the very near future and who support us by joining, donating, volunteering or purchasing our concessions.

PPM State Park Partners-Board of Directors:

  • Danny Miller, President  Email: 
  • Terry Carver, Vice-President
  • Tommy Lackey, Treasurer
  • Janis Janes, Secretary
  • Craig Carver, Director
  • Dale Hamilton, Director
  • Mark Hickerson, Director
  • Bill Hopkins, Director
  • Greg Hughes, Director
  • Tonya Orsini, Director
  • Tom Roth, Director
  • Laura Sharp, Director
  • Kella Staller, Director

Our Partners in Action

Over the last couple of years, several volunteer groups have assisted with Park projects:

  • Fort Worth Audubon Society, May 2013 – Native Bird Survey
  • Native Plant Society (Cross Timbers Chapter) & Texas Master Naturalist, January 2014 - Designed & Built Butterfly Garden – January 2014
  • Trail Work Day, March 2015 – Over 20 volunteers, including the Texas Equestrian Trail Riders Association (TETRA) and the North Texas Range Riders (NTTR), cleared several miles of equestrian and hiking trails.
  • Star Parties 2013/2014/2015 - The Texas Astronomical Society of Dallas (TAS) and the Fort Worth Astronomical Society (FWAS) have both provided volunteers and telescopes for semi-annual stargazing parties beginning in the Spring of 2013.
  • Strawn Chamber of Commerce, April 2015 - 2015 Texas Trash-Off/Keep Strawn Beautiful Clean-up Day – Volunteers scraped and painted picnic tables at old city park below Lake Tucker.

Your membership supports our efforts to ensure that Palo Pinto Mountains State Park is well funded and developed and the natural beauty of this North Texas gem is preserved for future generations. All funds are used for park improvement and educational efforts.

Click an image below to enlarge and see slideshow.

View the embedded image gallery online at:
https://strawntx.org/palo-pinto-mountains-state-park-partners#sigProId7745912541

About the Park

Texas Parks & Wildlife Department acquired the original acreage for the park in October, 2011, using funds from the sale of Eagle Mountain Lake State Park (located near Fort Worth). With the acquisition of several smaller parcels, the property now encompasses 4,300+ acres of beautiful, rugged, undeveloped terrain.

The newest state park in Texas, is located in the Western Cross Timbers Ecoregion of North Central Texas. The property offers great topographical diversity as well as a great variety of plants and wildlife. As the name implies, the Park is situated in the Palo Pinto Mountains. The name Palo Pinto roughly translates to "painted stick" in reference to the juniper trees of the area. The isolated, rugged mountains have been called a northern extension of the Hill Country and indeed they are both dissected plateaus featuring karst topography with similar vegetation, including Post Oak, Mesquite, Live Oak, Blackjack Oak, Texas Ash, Cedar Elms, Cedar and Ash juniper and native Pecan. The park is mostly rugged and hilly with sandstone and limestone escarpments, steep slopes, with intermittent small areas of prairie. The topography is such that there are a great number of striking scenic overlooks, where you can see for miles and miles. Two great features of the park are Palo Pinto Creek and Tucker Lake:

  • Palo Pinto Creek, which runs along the northern edge of the park, is a major tributary to the Brazos River. It is a very scenic creek with several deep pools that are good for swimming and fishing.
  • Tucker Lake - The centerpiece of the park is Tucker Lake, a 90-acre lake that was built in 1937 by the WPA as the water supply for the nearby city of Strawn. This beautiful, deep lake is set in a bowl surrounded by green hills covered in juniper, oak and elm. The Lake not only provides beautiful scenery and serene solitude but also fantastic fishing.

Wildlife observers to the park will see such animals as white tailed deer, turkey, raccoons, waterfowl, squirrels, and various small mammals and a variety of songbirds. Fish found in the park include bass, catfish, crappie, bluegill and sunfish.

Although Palo Pinto Mountains State Park is still in the planning stages, it has attracted a great amount of interest throughout the state:

For More Information

For more information about Palo Pinto Mountains State Park, visit our Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/PaloPintoMtns or contact Superintendent James Adams at 254-210-3015 or via email at  

For more information about Palo Pinto Mountains State Park Partners, please contact us:

phone - 254 672-5311
email -
address - P.O. Box 201, Strawn, TX 76475

 

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PPM State Park Maps

pdfState Park Boundaries

 

Texas Parks & Wildlife

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