North Texas’s newest state park shakes roots of small town

The Shorthorn
By Steven Shaw, The Shorthorn news editor
April 26, 2023

STRAWN, Texas — With its one restaurant, single gas station and a population of around 600, Strawn holds the only road entrance into the soon-to-open Palo Pinto Mountains State Park, and that’s by design. 

The park — Texas’ 90th state park and the region’s first in over 25 years — signed a 99-year lease with the city, agreeing to not establish another entrance separate from Strawn in exchange for Tucker Lake. The lake is a 90-acre centerpiece of the land that provides fishing and a water source to both the city and future park visitors. 

Bluebonnets, prickly pear cactuses, oak and juniper trees speckle the rolling hills of the landscape nestled 75 miles west of Fort Worth down Interstate 20. As the park prepares for a soft launch later this year, James Adams, UTA alumnus and park superintendent, works as its trailblazer, overseeing the construction of facilities, communicating with contractors, answering office emails and maintaining equipment supply. 

The scenery of Palo Pinto County sits on the front porch of Adams' home right next to the 4,871-acre park’s main entrance. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department bought its initial property in 2011 and has collaborated with Strawn since. 

Park assistant superintendent James Miller said the park’s development has already created new economic opportunities for the city, and there’s a “buzz around town” about future park-related businesses and tourism. 

The TPWD expects the park to attract around 75,000 visitors annually once it opens. 

Miller, a Strawn native, has emotional ties to the park’s land, he said. His first camping trip was at the lake, and he remembers hopping the property’s old fence to go fishing. “I got really lucky when they decided to build a state park in my backyard.”

In the early years of the park’s development, he started working there part-time while in college. The experience led him to major in wildlife management, which eventually helped secure his current position. 

Strawn is hoping for an “economic boom,” said Danny Miller, James Miller’s father, who doubles as the city administrator and secretary. In 2011, at the first official meeting about the park coming to the city, most people were excited. Some residents had concerns about how it would affect the city’s water supply, but overall, people didn’t know what impact it would have. 

The excitement faded over the next decade of slow development, but residents have recently seen enough construction vehicles on their streets to tell the park is making progress, Danny Miller said.  

A few locals are more skeptical.

“There’s some folks that live here because they like sleepy Strawn,” he said. “They like the town that we have been for the last 80 years, which has been a town without a lot of change.” 

It’s a city with low crime, no stoplights and a community where everyone knows everyone, Danny Miller said. Some residents like the quiet and worry that the park and its thousands of visitors will bring change. 

He tries to reassure residents that there will always be change — the city will either grow or shrink. “The odds of us staying the same are pretty slim,” he said. 

“We can sit here and put our heads in the sand and try to keep everything the same, but really what we’re doing is making things worse,” Danny Miller said. “Gradually, the town will decay, the infrastructure will decay, and we won’t have the tax base to do anything with it.” 

The city needs growth to maintain what it has, he said. 

Economic opportunities aside, Strawn resident Destiny Squires, a worker at the local Greyhound Pac-A-Sac gas station, said she’s excited about Tucker Lake reopening for fishing. The spot has been closed for years, but as part of the park, it will be consistently stocked with fish and feature new facilities and boat ramps. 

Recently, she’s seen a lot of people trying to move to Strawn, but there aren’t many homes available to rent, she said. 

The city has one Airbnb, which opened last year and advertises its proximity to the park. 

“Everyone lives here, they’ve lived here forever,” Squires said. “That might be an issue, all the people wanting to move here, but I think it’ll be good. It’ll be good for us.”

The city has recently seen a few developments, including housing, but they’re not necessarily linked to the park, Danny Miller said. In the past four years, they’ve added a day care, Dollar General, doctor’s office and pharmacy.  

He attributed some of the growth to North Texas’s population growth moving west. While most Strawn residents work at a local factory or with the school district, several commute over an hour to Fort Worth for work. 

The city is still expecting to see more houses, restaurants and recreational businesses built, Danny Miller said. To prepare for increased water demand, it has secured extra wells from a neighboring county and has a little water to spare — something most Texas cities can’t say. 

Before the TPWD purchased the property, most of the Palo Pinto Mountains area was privately-owned cattle ranch land. Tucker Lake was a city-owned park, an “out of the way gem” where Danny Miller had his first Easter egg hunt as a 5-year-old. 

“We knew that that lake would someday be an awesome recreation area, we just didn’t have the means to develop it,” he said. 

Adams said when the TPWD initially purchased the land, it was looking for a location within close range of Fort Worth where it could get a substantial amount of property with either natural or cultural significance. 

“This land has both,” he said. The park holds the nesting grounds of the endangered golden-cheeked warbler and has historical ties to Native American culture and the 1800s railroad industry. 

Park developers have taken a “light on the land approach” throughout construction, trying to integrate into the nature instead of take it over, Adams said. They’re confining the main buildings and amenities to about 140 acres and only establishing 60 campsites. In comparison, Cedar Hill State Park is nearly 60% smaller than Palo Pinto Mountains State Park yet has 350 developed campsites. 

The contractors are nearly finished installing utilities and are preparing to establish roadways, James Miller said. Currently, they’re trying to get ahead of the opening, obtaining signage and hiring and training new employees. Meanwhile, Strawn is counting on the park’s success, Danny Miller said. 

“Strawn started out as a little ranch community, and then later on a railroad community, and then a coal mining and oil community. All of that has since gone,” he said. “We’ve been sort of lingering for years and years. Well now we get to become a ‘state park’ community, and we’ll see what we can make of that.” 

@Shawlings601

news-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu