Signs, CCC, and golf, oh my!
Sunday morning on June 7 crept up quickly the day after we went to Palmetto. My mom had been pestering us to head on down to her hometown of Lockhart, TX for Lockhart State Park for a while. She always said that there wasn’t much there and it was small, but she was excited for us to get there and see the park. Lockhart, TX is not famous for its outdoor adventures, instead it is known as the barbeque capital of Texas. Four of the most highly regarded bbq joints in the state call Lockhart home. Although Kaylee and I weren’t going there for some bbq, we were ready for a new state park.
Lockhart State Park has a unique feature, a nine-hole golf course smack-dab in the middle of the park. The interesting part about this park’s history is that the CCC group that was there during the Great Depression actually made this land specifically for it to be developed into a park. Back in the 1930s the City of Lockhart donated over 600 acres of land to the CCC so they would make this park and golf course. The golf course has been a staple of this park for the 80 years of this park’s existence.
Our original plan was to play golf then hit up the trails and ‘Points of Interest’ afterwards. Though this isn’t a big park by any means, the trails were a hoot and a half to walk. Naturally, our plan didn’t work out the way we wanted it to since the park headquarters were closed due to COVID, and we didn’t know how to start playing golf. We started to hike.
On top of the hill in Lockhart State Park resides the recreation hall the CCC had back in the day. This is where we started. Up on top is also a water tower made by the CCC and the initial first tee box on the golf course the CCC made back in the 30s. A ton of rock work was done by the CCC within the park boundaries. A few dams were made on Clear Fork Creek which runs through the park. These dams create small man made waterfalls and cascades that trickle downstream. There is even a pool area in the creek that the CCC created for those hot Texas summer days (like June 7 was).
We walked down from the top of the hill where the recreation hall was and to the first dam. Then the Clear Fork Trail follows the creek bank for half a mile and then dead ends into one of the three rockwall dams the CCC built. We walked across the dam to the next trail which sent us to a fishing honey hole on Clear Fork Creek which transitioned to the most challenging trail of the park. The Persimmon Trail elevates around 100 feet in 0.2 miles and made the exercise rings on our Apple Watches close quickly.
The rest of the trails trace the state park line other than a scenic view spot which is overrun and therefore you can’t see much of the view below. After some dips in the trails and more sweating, we made it back to the top of the hill to where the truck was parked. Driving back down the road is dangerous with blind curves and narrow lanes, but we made it back to the bottom all in one piece. We looked for the pool and last of the three dams and nearly gave up until on a whim we walked down the creek a little further to find them together. I am glad we found them since they were the best of the CCC rock work they did in that park. We got ring pictures and finally went to play golf.
To make a long story short, we both did a lot better than we thought we would. It was fun to get back out there and play a few holes (we may have stolen the time away from the state park). Kaylee completely whiffed a couple of swings, but we won’t hold that against her even though she played softball for a long time (Kaylee: “Golf is different than softball…”). We took some golf pictures on the tee box of the first hole and headed back to Smithville where we immediately turned around and spent the rest of the day at Lake Bastrop with my parents and my brother. We knew we needed rest before the next day since the Wyatts were going to show Kaylee the family business and she was coming to lay grass with us. I think she is happy that her parents are teachers and she never had to lay grass.
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