How to Get There

Overview

The Big Thicket is a region of a heavily-forested area of Southeast Texas. This area represents a portion of the mixed pine-hardwood forests of southeast US. The National Park Service established the Big Thicket National Preserve (BTNP) within the region in 1974 and it is recognized as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO. Although the diversity of animals in the area is high, with over 500 vertebrates, it is the complex mosaic of ecosystems and plant diversity. Biologists have identified at least eight, and up to eleven, ecosystems in the Big Thicket area. More than 160 species of trees and shrubs, 800 herbs and vines, and 340 types of grasses are known to occur in the Big Thicket, and estimates as high as over 1000 flowering plant species and 200 trees and shrubs have been made, plus ferns, carnivorous plants, and more. The Big Thicket has historically been the most dense forest region in Texas.

While no exact boundaries exist, conservatively the area occupies all of Hardin County, most of Polk, and Tyler counties, and parts of Jasper, Liberty and San Jacinto counties, including areas between the Neches River on the east, the Trinity River on the west, Pine Island Bayou on the south, to the higher elevations and older Eocene geological formations to the north.

Topography

The Big Thicket Basin has been described as shallow bowl or dish, tilted to one side, with the high rim on the interior north and low rim on the coastal south. Eastern and western rims consist of the low ridges that divide the Neches River and Sabine River drainages on the east and the Neches River and Trinity River drainages on the west. Elevations range from about 350 feet (110 m) in the north to 25-35 feet (7.6-10.7 m) in the south, dropping as low as 3 feet (1 m) at confluence of the Neches River and Pine Island Bayou. Northern regions are characterized by low gently rolling hills and well-formed drainage systems of streams and creeks in the landscape. The southern regions are comparatively flat, with poor drainage and support moderately extensive wetlands.

The headquarters of Big Thicket National Preserve (BTNP) are located 8 miles (13 km) north of Kountze, Texas, and approximately 30 miles (48 km) north of Beaumont via US 69/287. It is administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. It consists of nine separate land units as well as six water corridors and as of October 22, 2019, the preserve includes 113,122 acres (457.79 km2) spread over seven counties. Centered about Hardin County, Texas, the BTNP extends into parts of surrounding Jasper, Jefferson, Liberty, Orange, Polk, and Tyler counties. It was established in 1974 in an attempt to protect the many plant and animal species within. Along with Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida, the BTNP became the first national preserve in the United States National Park System when both were authorized by the United States Congress on October 11, 1974.

The BTNP was also designated as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 1981.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Big Thicket", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0