Author – Michael Smith
(This is a working document, to be expanded, which aims to document the history of the LBJ National Grasslands)
Many stories have played out on the prairies, limestone cuestas, oak woodlands, ponds and creeks within the more than 20,250 acres of LBJ National Grasslands. The human stories are interwoven with stories of prairies, woods and wildlife, so that none of them are completely independent of the others. In prehistory, various groups of indigenous people lived and hunted on the land. They were displaced by White settlers in the last few hundred years, changing the focus of the stories to ranching, farming, and the encroachment of cities and highways. Because those histories are all interrelated, it is important to consider north Texas’ human history in order to understand the LBJ National Grasslands.
The earliest people to live in North America seem certain to have come from Siberia, crossing a land bridge or possibly an icy passage to what is now Alaska. From there they explored and populated North and then South America. In Texas, the earliest human artifacts were discovered in Denton County, not far east of the LBJ National Grasslands1. A series of hearths were found with remains of animals, shells and hackberry seeds, and the artifacts are dated to at least twelve thousand years ago if not earlier. The earliest Paleo-American cultures were later replaced by indigenous cultures that domesticated plants for farming and developed increasingly sophisticated tools.
In the 1700-1800s, the people who claimed this land were Native Americans including Comanche, or as they referred to themselves, Nermernuh (“The People”)2. After acquiring horses in the 17th century the Comanche began to live as nomadic people of the Great Plains, and gradually expanded southward. The bands that moved into the Cross Timbers of North Texas were called “Nokoni” or “Those Who Turn Back” (the similar name of the north Texas town of Nocona comes from Peta Nocona, a Comanche chief).
There was a long period when conflict alternated with attempts at peace with Spaniards, early Texans, and then the U.S. government. White settlers pushed westward, establishing ranches and farms on land that had been occupied by Comanche. At times there were Comanche attacks and raids on settlers followed by counterattacks, as well as skirmishes and battles between bands of Comanche and U.S. soldiers3.
Ultimately the Comanche people were forced onto reservations, facing drastic and difficult changes in their lives as well as pressure to assimilate to White culture. In 1901 the reservation was broken up, with even more loss of land. The land that would become the LBJ National Grasslands, along with the rest of the prairies and woodlands of North Central Texas, had been taken from the Comanche.
At the time, saying that the land had been “taken” from indigenous people would have stirred little concern or guilt. Whites generally had little regard for Native Americans and their culture, and the widespread belief was that Europeans would bring Christianity and civilization and thus improve them. Even when Sam Houston negotiated treaties with Native people that could allow for peace, the young Texas Congress ratified almost none of them. Texas’ second President, Mirabeau B. Lamar, referred to them as “wild cannibals of the woods” and called for their “total extinction or total expulsion.”4 People with such views do not see the taking of the land as a theft, because they do not grant sufficient humanity to the people whose land was stolen.
The attempts by white settlers to use and to tame the Great Plains started primarily with cattle grazing on lands that were vast and mostly unfenced. However, the Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged more people to settle and farm western public lands with its offer of 160 acres to anyone agreeing to stay for at least five years and “improve” it. In practice, fewer acres went to individuals than were claimed by speculators, railroads, and the like.5
And then after the Civil War, with advances in farm machinery (later including the use of tractors), eighteen million acres of virgin prairie that had never been plowed were broken and cultivated.6 The conversion of the prairies to farmland continued until the beginning of the 1930s when an extended drought settled in. The unprotected topsoil eroded and was picked up by the wind in enormous dust clouds. The Great Plains became the “Dust Bowl” and the drought, along with the Great Depression, brought catastrophe to millions of Americans. The combination of economic and environmental conditions drove many farmers into debt and poverty, and many left their farms.
President Herbert Hoover convened a large group of agriculture experts to examine what was happening and consider actions to take. It was thought that up to twenty-five million acres “have been destroyed beyond recovery.”7 There was much discussion of proper land use planning and talk of the government buying out struggling farmers and ending land giveaways. The next President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, did end the land giveaways and created the Resettlement Administration to deal with issues including resettling people stuck in failing farms and correcting the abuses of the land. The Administration struggled with these tasks until, two years later, it was passed to the Department of Agriculture. Shortly after, Congress passed the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937,
“…to correct maladjustments in land use, and thus assist in controlling soil erosion, reforestation, preserving natural resources, protecting fish and wildlife, developing and protecting recreational facilities, mitigating floods, preventing impairment of dams and reservoirs, developing energy resources, conserving surface and surface moisture, protecting the watersheds of navigable streams, and protecting the public lands, health, safety, and welfare, but not to build industrial parks or establish private industrial or commercial enterprises.”8
We can find the next threads of the story of the LBJ National Grasslands in a “draft environmental statement” from the U.S. Forest Service in 1974 concerning what was then known as the Caddo-Cross Timbers National Grasslands:
“These lands were purchased by the federal government from private individuals after passage of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act of July 22, 1937. These lands were called Land Utilization Projects and administered by the Soil Conservation Service until 12/20/53. The lands were then transferred to the administrative jurisdiction of the Forest Service.”9
The statement went on to say that between 1953 and the early 1970s, “much of it has been revegetated, but the severe gullies are still a conspicuous part of the scene. Nearly all tracts on the Cross Timbers unit are fenced and grazed conservatively.”10
In that same year, the name of the grasslands just above Decatur was changed from the “Cross Timbers National Grasslands” to the “Lyndon B. Johnson National Grasslands.”
The Forest Service sought public input in 1971 and heard from 60 speakers and received about 40 written responses. Among the written responses were recommendations from the Sierra Club regarding restricting grazing, leaving trails as primitive “cow paths,” and advocating for public safety by disallowing guns or at least prohibiting pistols and rifles, whose bullets posed greater danger than shotguns to others who might be nearby. One private letter asked that the grasslands be sold to private individuals so that the land could be “brought back to full production.” The Forest Service response was terse and concise: “The Lyndon B. Johnson Grasslands is presently in federal ownership because of past abuses to lands” (and it added some comments about the advantage of such ownership). The 1974 document stated that public response overall was “clearly” in favor of continuing federal ownership.
At the beginning of the 1900s, the federal government regarded the primary uses of the national forests as the production of timber along with protecting forests and water flow within the forests. A forest was seen primarily as a source of timber products. By mid-century, Congress responded to the demands of other users of the forests by passing the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960.11 It mandated the multiple-use of Forest Service land, defined as, “the management of all the various renewable surface resources of the national forests so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the needs of the American people.” This was to include the “sustained yield” part of the law – regularly producing a high output of the various resources from the national forests. The U.S. Forest Service is legally required to allow mining, timber harvesting, livestock grazing, hunting, fishing, and recreational activities on our public lands.
And so, the LBJ National Grasslands is protected from being developed and plowed, but that protection is limited. Gas wells dot the various units of the grasslands, cattle graze there (and limited grazing actually should confer some benefit to the prairie openings), and shotguns and archery equipment are allowed.
1 Newcomb, W.W. 1961. The Indians of Texas: From Prehistoric to Modern Times. Austin: University of Texas Press.
2 Texas State Historical Association. Comanche Indians. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/comanche-indians (accessed 5/16/22)
3 Center for Greater Southwestern Studies, University of Texas at Arlington. Border Land: The Struggle for Texas, 1820-1879. https://library.uta.edu/borderland/tribe/comanche?page=14 (accessed 5/16/22)
4 Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Native American Relations in Texas. https://www.tsl.texas.gov/exhibits/indian/war/lamar-speech-1838.html (accessed 5/16/22)
5 National Archives. Homestead Act (1862). Homestead Act (1862) | National Archives (accessed 8/22/22)
6 Moul, F. 2006. The National Grasslands: A Guide to America’s Undiscovered Treasures. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, P. 13.
7 Ibid., P. 15.
8 GovInfo. Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act. Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act – Content Details – (govinfo.gov) (accessed 9/3/22)
9 USDA Forest Service. 1974. Draft Environmental Statement, Cross Timbers Unit Plan. https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=xz83AQAAMAAJ&rdid=book-xz83AQAAMAAJ&rdot=1 (accessed 8/22/22)
10 Ibid, P. 3.
11 Rangelands Gateway. Multiple Use, Sustained Yield. https://rangelandsgateway.org/topics/uses-range-pastureland/multiple-use-sustained-yield (accessed 5/23/22)