Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area

Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area
Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area
	Entrance to Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area
Location	Houston County, Texas
Nearest city	Kennard
Coordinates	31°23′19″N95°9′17″W / 31.38861°N 95.15472°W Coordinates: 31°23′19″N95°9′17″W / 31.38861°N 95.15472°W
Established	1936
Governing body	United States Forest Service

Last updated September 12, 2019

Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area is a developed park within the Davy Crockett National Forest near Kennard, Texas, United States. The park surrounds a 45-acre lake that was once a mill pond and source of water for a sawmill which operated from 1902 to 1920. Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area was built in 1936 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and is operated by the United States Forest Service (USFS). The facility is open year-round and includes a large campground, picnic areas, an amphitheater, a swim area and hiking trails.^[1]

Davy Crockett National Forest is off U.S. Highway 69 lying west of Lufkin, Texas and east of Crockett. It is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service local headquarters in Lufkin. There are local ranger district offices located in Ratcliff.

Kennard is a city in Houston County, Texas, United States. The population was 337 at the 2010 census. The main street is Texas State Highway 7.

A sawmill or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern saw mills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes. The "portable" saw mill is iconic and of simple operation—the logs lay flat on a steel bed and the motorized saw cuts the log horizontally along the length of the bed, by the operator manually pushing the saw. The most basic kind of saw mill consists of a chainsaw and a customized jig, with similar horizontal operation.

History

In the late 19th century, pioneer settler J. H. Ratcliff operated a small sawmill in the virgin forests of East Texas. In 1899, the Central Coal and Coke Company of Kansas City, Missouri began buying land in the area along with the small sawmill. Central Coal and Coke eventually owned 120,000 acres of timberland. The company used Ratcliff's sawmill to produce materials to build the much larger "Four C Mill." By June 1902, the fourteen acre mill complex produced 350,000 board feet of lumber per day. By 1917, the company had cut all the larger old growth trees available. The company harvested the smaller trees between 1917 and 1920, but that could not keep the mill profitable and it ceased operation.^[2]

East Texas is a distinct cultural, geographic, and ecological area in the U.S. state of Texas.

Kansas City is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city had an estimated population of 491,918 in 2018, making it the 38th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Kansas–Missouri state line. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a Missouri River port at its confluence with the Kansas River coming in from the west. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. Confusion between the two ensued and the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish them soon after.

In October 1934, Civilian Conservation Corps Company 1803 set up camp in the area for project number F-4 to build Davy Crockett National Forest and Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area. The CCC built an earthen dam to turn the old sawmill pond into 45-acre Ratcliff Lake. They also built roads, a bath house and planted an estimated 3,000,000 trees to re-establish the forest.

Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area was closed in September 2008 due to damage from Hurricane Ike. After re-opening in 2010, damage caused by a tornado and then severe drought caused the park to close again between April 2011 and September 2012.^[3]

Hurricane Ike was a powerful tropical cyclone that swept through portions of the Greater Antilles and Northern America in September 2008, wreaking havoc on infrastructure and agriculture, particularly in Cuba and Texas. The ninth tropical storm, fifth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, Ike developed from a tropical wave west of Cape Verde on September 1 and strengthened to a peak intensity as a Category 4 hurricane over the open waters of the central Atlantic on September 4 as it tracked westward. Several fluctuations in strength occurred before Ike made landfall on eastern Cuba on September 8. The hurricane weakened prior to continuing into the Gulf of Mexico, but increased its intensity by the time of its final landfall on Galveston, Texas on September 13, before becoming an extratropical storm on September 14. The remnants of Ike continued to track across the United States and into Canada, causing considerable damage inland, before dissipating on the next day.

A tornado is a rapidly rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. The windstorm is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology to name a weather system with a low-pressure area in the center around which, from an observer looking down toward the surface of the earth, winds blow counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern. Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, and they are often visible in the form of a condensation funnel originating from the base of a cumulonimbus cloud, with a cloud of rotating debris and dust beneath it. Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour (180 km/h), are about 250 feet (80 m) across, and travel a few miles before dissipating. The most extreme tornadoes can attain wind speeds of more than 300 miles per hour (480 km/h), are more than two miles (3 km) in diameter, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles.

Drought extended period when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply

A drought or drouth is an event of prolonged shortages in the water supply, whether atmospheric, surface water or ground water. A drought can last for months or years, or may be declared after as few as 15 days. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region and harm to the local economy. Annual dry seasons in the tropics significantly increase the chances of a drought developing and subsequent bush fires. Periods of heat can significantly worsen drought conditions by hastening evaporation of water vapour.

Flora and fauna

The area is heavily forested with loblolly pine, oak and other hardwoods. A wide variety of wildlife inhabit the area, including the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. The lake contains largemouth bass, bream, channel catfish and blue catfish ^[1]

The red-cockaded woodpecker is a woodpecker found in southeastern North America. Some taxonomic authorities, including the American Ornithological Society, continue to place this species in the genus Picoides.

The largemouth bass is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae (sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States and northern Mexico, but widely introduced elsewhere. It is known by a variety of regional names, such as the widemouth bass, bigmouth bass, black bass, bucketmouth, largies, Potter's fish, Florida bass, Florida largemouth, green bass, bucketmouth bass, Green trout, gilsdorf bass, Oswego bass, southern largemouth and (paradoxically) northern largemouth, LMB. The largemouth bass is the state fish of Georgia and Mississippi, and the state freshwater fish of Florida and Alabama.

Bream species of freshwater and marine fish

Bream ( ) is a species of freshwater and marine fish belonging to a variety of genera including Abramis, Acanthopagrus, Argyrops, Blicca, Brama, Chilotilapia, Etelis, Lepomis, Gymnocranius, Lethrinus, Nemipterus, Pharyngochromis, Rhabdosargus, or Scolopsis.

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References

1 2 "Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area, TX". recreation.gov. Recreation.gov. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
↑ Eliza H. Bishop, "RATCLIFF, TX (HOUSTON COUNTY)," Handbook of Texas Online, accessed April 10, 2015. Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
↑ Johnson, Will. "Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area Re-Opens". The Messenger. Retrieved 11 April 2015.

External links

United States Forest Service - Ratcliff Lake

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[recgov-1] 1 2 "Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area, TX". recreation.gov. Recreation.gov. Retrieved 11 April 2015.

[tsha-2] Eliza H. Bishop, "RATCLIFF, TX (HOUSTON COUNTY)," Handbook of Texas Online, accessed April 10, 2015. Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

[3] Johnson, Will. "Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area Re-Opens". The Messenger. Retrieved 11 April 2015.