Taking a stroll along the informal paths meandering through the West 11th Street Park forest is not a journey through a mature pristine native East Texas landscape. This forest bears the imprint of man’s presence, a forest interrupted in its natural growth process.

The historic land management practices on this 20.2 acre piece of property since the Reinermann family settled here in 1834 are not known. Was the area forested then and cleared by fire, as was a common practice in that period? Was it a relatively clear area utilized for truck farming or raising livestock in support of Houston’s burgeoning population? Did lumber companies harvest trees off the property as they did in other nearby areas some eighty years ago? That history is simply not clear.

Today the predominate tree species are eighty to one hundred foot tall Loblolly Pines estimated to be some sixty or seventy years old. Left to natural processes one would expect a forest in this geographic area to also exhibit large numbers of significantly developed slower growing hardwoods. These successional second-growth trees would be ready to truly flourish as the loblollies are now beginning to reach the end of their lives. Yet, for the most part, the second growth trees are young - less than a decade old. Natural forest processes were simply interrupted.

The existing trees tell us that about 1939, when title to the land was passing from the Hogg Foundation to the University of Texas, the growth of Loblolly Pines were apparently being selectively encouraged. More recent land management practices, since the land passed into the hands of the Houston Independent School District in 1949, are better known. Until some seven years ago, the entire site was periodically mowed. Sometimes infrequently, permitting fairly thick unruly growths of grasses, brambles and struggling young seedlings to develop and sometimes frequently maintaining a more formal appearance. All except the mature loblollies and a few fortunate younger hardwood survivors growing in inaccessible small patches fell to the mowers. And always the mowers returned.

Then, some seven years ago HISD announced plans to build the new High School for the Performing and Visual Arts on the site of what had now long been a de facto neighborhood park. Residents rose up in complaint and HISD yielded. The plans were cancelled and instead HISD signed a five-year lease on the property with the city. Debate ensued within the neighborhood concerning the nature of the park. Was it to be neatly a mowed, open, traditional park land or maintained as a natural preserve? The latter voices prevailed. The clock ticked, low-key efforts to secure the property into the city’s park system languished and the forest grew.

In 2003 came word that HISD had decided to place the property on the auction block for the highest bidder. If the community would not accept one of HISD’s most desirable campuses, there was little chance HISD had anything to offer the community would accept. Revenues were tight. Selling was just good business. Once again the community rose up in complaint. Again HISD yielded, negotiated a price of $9.2 million and signed an option-to-buy contract with the City. Soon after city council and the mayor approved $4 million in matching funds to apply toward the purchase and the Houston Parks Board took up the fund raising challenge. Neighbors relaxed again. The good fight was being fought to secure the Park. All was well in Camelot. And the forest grew.

But the clock was ticking and the option-to-buy was set to expire on December 31, 2006. When word reached the neighborhood in mid-September that fund raising was flagging and part of the park was to be put up as security in an attempt to get a loan to pay off the $3.7 million balance yet to be collected, the community acted. Within a matter of days the first meeting of SAVE THE PARK!, was held as the community came to grips with the fact that simply waiting for “others” to secure the future of the park was not the best way to proceed. For several weeks, neighbors have gathered, planned and acted. Their intensity is being felt at city hall, HISD and by local and national potential donors.

And the forest? In testimony to nature’s amazing recuperative powers, in the seven short years since mowing the interior of the Park ceased, brambles of undergrowth, wild grasses and a much hardier, wider selection of young native hardwood trees; oaks, ash, hickory, sweet gums, etc. have sprung up. The forest is growing. 1,800 mature trees, 200 species of plants, 81 species of birds, 33 species of butterflies, and still growing.

In a city already short of per capita park space - especially inside Loop 610, with high density housing beginning to impinge upon areas near the park and a city population that by all estimates is projected to continue growing into the foreseeable future, it is hard to comprehend how the last and largest stand of trees inside Loop 610 could be lost. But the potential threat is real. The goal is lofty, but a significant core of the community is now committed to keeping developers at bay.

Winning this fight will require support from the greater community beyond the immediate neighborhoods. Some of that support is easy. Drop by the Park for the planned Green Day/Discover the Park Festival on Saturday, October 21 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This is a fund raising event principally through a native plant sale and silent auction, but there will also be guided nature walks and family activities to raise greater community awareness of what may be lost by sale of every part of the park.

Other support is more traditional. Letters to Houston's Mayor Bill White, City Council and HISD expressing appreciation for their past support and effort and encouraging their future support are needed. Individual donations and employee matching fund programs will help demonstrate community support, a much needed message to guide decision makers. Encouraging individuals and groups capable of making significant contributions toward purchase of the property to do so would simply be ideal!