ILLUSTRATED FLORA OF EAST TEXAS - Brit - Botanical Research ...

150 INTRODUCTION/CADDO LAKE
LOCATION OF CADDO LAKE
Caddo Lake, an extensive bald-cypress (Taxodium distichum) swamp ecosystem (Fig. 82), is
found in the northeastern part of the Texas Pineywoods and straddles the Texas-Louisiana
border (Fig. 83). It is located in Harrison and Marion counties, east of Jefferson along Big
Cypress Bayou, a tributary of the Red
River. The Caddo Lake ecosystem
FIG.83/LOCATION OF CADDO LAKE IN THE NORTHEASTERN PART OF THE
is part of the Cypress Creek water-
TEXAS PINEYWOODS ADJACENT TO THE LOUISIANA BORDER IN HARRISON
shed, an area of 15,540 square km
AND MARION COUNTIES (MODIFIED FROM VAN KLEY & HINE 1998). USED
(6,000 square miles). The water-
WITH PERMISSION FROM THE TEXAS JOURNAL OF SCIENCE.
shed includes Lake Cypress Springs,
Lake Bob Sandlin, Lake O’ the Pines,
Caddo Lake, and parts of
eleven Texas counties, as well
as a portion of Caddo Parish,
Louisiana. The elevation of the
watershed ranges from about 50 to
180 m (160 to 600 feet) with the lake
level of Caddo Lake being approximately
51 m (168 feet) above sea level.
While much of the open water part
of the lake (called Big Lake) lies in
Louisiana, the majority of Caddo
Lake’s watershed is in Texas (Ingold
& Hardy no date; Dahmer 1995;
Giggleman et al. 1998; Van Kley &
Hine 1998).
PRESETTLEMENT AND EARLY SETTLEMENT HISTORY AND CONDITIONS IN THE CADDO
LAKE AREA
Caddo Lake has a unique, complex, colorful, and controversial history (Carter 1936; Dahmer
1995). Though an earlier Spanish expedition (De Soto-Moscoso in 1542, led by Luis de
Moscoso Alvarado) contacted indigenous Caddoan people in both Louisiana and Texas and
may have passed close to Caddo Lake (Bruseth 1996; La Vere 1998), the first known
Europeans to visit the Caddo Lake area proper were members of the ill-fated seventeenth
century French expedition originally led by the explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La
Salle (Dahmer 1995; Smith 1995). La Salle had explored widely in the central part of the
continent, from the mouth of the Mississippi to the Great Lakes, and had been granted
permission to establish a colony in the New World (Cole 1946; Stephens & Holmes 1989).
After founding a struggling colony on the Texas coast (Fort Saint Louis—on Garcitas Creek, a
tributary of Matagorda Bay, located in present-day Victoria County—Weddle 1996), an apparently
desperate La Salle with a contingent of nineteen men attempted to find his way back to
the Great Lakes. Eventually, disagreements ensued and La Salle was killed by his own men in
the spring of 1687, probably in what is now Grimes County (Foster 1998). Survivors of the
expedition continued northeast across East Texas and passed through the Caddo Lake watershed
later in the spring of 1687 before crossing the Red River and eventually making their
way back to the Great Lakes (Ingold & Hardy no date; Cole 1946; Newcomb 1961; Stephens
& Holmes 1989; Dahmer 1995).
As did subsequent French and Spanish expeditions, the seventeenth century La Salle
Expedition encountered a tribe of indigenous people who called themselves the
Kadohadacho (now considered one of the confederacies of the Caddos) (Newcomb 1961;
Dahmer 1995; Smith 1995; La Vere 1998). The Caddos were part of the advanced farming