User:Twin3399/Fort Parker State Park Lake

Fort Parker State Park Lake lake is located South of Mexia on Texas Highway 14 in Mexia, Texas 76667. Fort Parker lake has a span of 725 acres with a maximum depth of about 6-9 feet. This park was impounded in the year 1935. This lake is often extremely turbid year-round. This lake is fed by the Navasota river which they built a damn for in 1939.

Vegetation

The vegetation that surrounds this lake mostly consists of lotus, cutgrass, and bulrush.

Fishing

This park is not known as a great fishing area however some relatively large catfish have been caught from onshore fishing, they also have Crappie, but they can be difficult to find at times, and white bass. They do have a small amount of large mouth bass, but they are few in number. Fort Parker is known as a community fishing lake because it is in a state park. In the past Texas Parks and Wildlife have tried to stock this lake with fish, this has had varying success depending on the species.

Nature

There are a lot of Bluebirds, ducks, herons, waterfowls, coyotes, raccoons, squirrels, and bobcats.

Boating

The upper part of this lake is normally too shallow to take a boat across it, while the lower part can have a maximum depth of up to nine feet following a dredging event in the late 1900’s. They have a canoe trip available that is approximately 3 miles long along the Navasota river.

History

Fort Parker State Park Lake had been named for the stockade of the Parker family that had been built in the year 1834. There had also been a historical event involving the Comanche Indian Raid in May of 1936. The State Park land had been donated to the state by the city of Mexia and three other people that had owned the property. The Civilian Conservation Corps had built the dam for the Fort Parker Lake and other structures of the park in the 1930s.