Texas's Ghost Campgrounds: Where the Wilds Used to Be

You all ever look at a huge lake or a brand new neighborhood and wonder what was there before? Here in Texas, a state that changes faster than the weather, there’s a lot of land with a history that’s been paved over or put underwater. I’m talkin’ about the old camping spots. Not the ones that are just closed, but the ones that are gone for good. Places where folks used to fish on a riverbank that's now fifty feet under the surface of a lake, or where they hunted deer in a forest that’s now a subdivision with a Target.

These ain't stories you'll find in most guidebooks. They’re ghost stories of a sort, tales of lost landscapes and forgotten getaways. They remind us that the Texas we see today is just one chapter in a long, long book.

Drowned Dreams: The Campsites Beneath the Lakes

Texas has a whole lot of man-made lakes, and they were mostly built for good reasons, like stopping floods and giving folks water. But to make a lake, you gotta flood a valley. And in those valleys were towns, ranches, and some of the best river-bottom camping you could imagine.

Take Lake Travis near Austin. Before Mansfield Dam was built in the 1930s and 40s to control the wild floods of the Colorado River, the area was a winding river valley. [9, 21] Imagine the secluded spots along those riverbanks, perfect for a weekend of fishing and camping. All of that is now at the bottom of the lake. [21] The same thing happened all over the state. Lake Buchanan, another of the Highland Lakes, completely submerged the town of Bluffton. [6, 15] When the lake gets real low from a drought, you can sometimes see the old foundations, a ghostly reminder of a whole community and the wild lands that surrounded it. [6, 20]

Up north, Lake Texoma swallowed several towns, including Preston, which was a busy crossing on the Red River for cattle drives. [7] Think of the countless campfires that must have burned on those banks over the years. In East Texas, the massive Sam Rayburn Reservoir covers old communities like Zana and Concord, places that were abandoned and then flooded, erasing them from the map. [12] For every big, beautiful lake in Texas, there's a story of a valley, a river, and probably some real fine camping spots that are now just a memory.

Paved-Over Prairies: Where the City Ate the Countryside

Sometimes, a campsite isn’t lost to water, but to concrete. The growth of Texas cities is a sight to behold, but it means the wild edges get pushed further and further out. Places that were once a short drive from Dallas or Houston for a bit of country peace are now bustling suburbs.

Consider The Woodlands, north of Houston. Before it became a famous master-planned community, it was 50,000 acres of timberland owned by the Grogan-Cochran Lumber Company. [10, 16] George Mitchell, the man who created The Woodlands, started buying up the land in 1964 with a vision of a community that lived in harmony with the forest. [10, 13] But before all the planning and building began in 1974, that huge stretch of piney woods was just that—woods. [13, 16] It's easy to imagine families and hunters had their own secret spots out there, places that are now occupied by village centers and golf courses.

It's a similar story around Houston with the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs. Built in the 1940s for flood control, they were way out in the rural countryside. [3, 4] Today, development has crowded right up to and even inside the reservoir land. [3] What was once remote farmland and wild prairie, perfect for an impromptu campout, is now surrounded by the city.

Ghosts of the Piney Woods

East Texas has a different kind of ghost. The Piney Woods have seen towns boom and bust with the timber and oil industries for over a century. A lot of small communities, like Omega or Danville in Gregg County, were born, served their purpose, and then just faded away as the railroad passed them by or the resources dried up. [25] Some of these places, like Aldridge in Jasper County, were bustling logging towns that are now official ghost towns deep in the Angelina National Forest. [8]

While these were working towns, the woods around them were everything. People hunted, fished, and lived off that land. The informal campsites they used, the clearings by a creek or the flat spots under a stand of big pines, have long since been reclaimed by the forest or altered by modern logging. These lost spots are harder to find, but their stories are written in the old cemeteries and forgotten roads you can still sometimes find back in the woods. [26]

Remembering What Was Lost

You can't pitch a tent in a ghost campground. But knowing their stories changes how you see Texas. When you're boating on Lake Travis, you can picture the old river valley below. When you're driving through a sprawling suburb, you can imagine the open fields and forests that were there not so long ago. It makes you appreciate the state parks and wild places we still have left. It’s a good reminder that nothing's permanent, so you better enjoy the wild, open spaces while you can. Go find your spot, make a memory, and be thankful it's still there to be found.