History of Buffalo Bayou

Buffalo Bayou has a history of being an environmental gem – a gentle, clear running, spring fed waterway supporting vast wildlife and habitat diversity for Native American and European inhabitants.

Many residents of the Houston area have never stopped to think about the ecosystems or communities along Buffalo Bayou which predated the Allen Brothers’ trip up the bayou to what is now ‘Allen’s Landing’. The remarkably rich early history of this waterway will astonish people who are unfamiliar with Houston’s, far-reaching, and interesting heritage.

The Buffalo Bayou has flowed through thousands of years in existence, as a significant demarcation for varied and changing ecosystems, Native American tribal societies and later, the diverse political divisions of early Texas. During pre-Columbian history, Buffalo Bayou served as a delineation between woodland Indians, the Great Caddo Nation to the north and the prairie tribes and nomadic coastal tribes along the south banks.

Buffalo Bayou continued its’ dramatic human history with some of the earliest explorers to reach the Americas from Europe. A mere thirty five years after Columbus’ first voyage they found their way to Galveston Island and subsequently up this waterway. Some settled here as early as the late sixteenth century.

This little waterway, referred to as “Buffalo River” on early maps of the region appears almost insignificant. Yet its’ geographical characteristics are what led to its importance in the history of this land we call Texas.

Historically, Steven F. Austin designated Buffalo Bayou as the southern border of his colony; the Texas revolution was won at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River, the Allen Brothers considered it a navigable system from Galveston Island to the new town they would later call Houston. Austin’s Colony offered many who lacked the ability to become land owners in Europe and the United States, an opportunity to do so with land grants that were issued to Texas settlers. Frontiersman and families coming to this region staked their hopes and fortunes on an opportunity to make Buffalo Bayou their “river of dreams.”

Environmentally, this water way was an ecological gem, providing excellent sources of clear running, spring fed waters for early Native Americans, European frontiersmen and later settlers. Unlike the larger rivers in the region, Buffalo Bayou’s gentle waters provided an ability to navigate the system both up stream and down. The environmental story of Buffalo Bayou unfortunately portrays how the incredibly diverse, rich, yet delicate habitats and ecosystems were altered and to a great degree destroyed by the actions of early fur trappers and later settlers who did not understand or practice conservation. This story of destruction continues into the present with unsustainable development, pesticide contamination, oil runoff and other contaminates polluting this waterway in unimaginable ways.

The story of Buffalo Bayou’s fleeting natural heritage in an encroaching urban area continues with the current efforts to clean up and reestablish some of the natural habitats which once surrounded it, and develop ways of remediating the pollution which goes into the watershed.

The story of Buffalo Bayou includes the heroic efforts of a tiny group of people who fought some of the most powerful factions of Federal Government for more than thirty years to prevent its’ channelization and concrete paving into a veritable cement ditch. Buffalo Bayou exists as a habitat indicator and a microcosm of how inhabitants come to understand and treat the remnants of our fleeting natural heritage.

The efforts to preserve green space and restore wildlife habitats that still remains, provides an exceptional opportunity for Houstonians as well as visitors to view, study, preserve and restore magnificent migratory bird species, indigenous reptiles and aboriginal species of mammals along with numerous other outstanding species of native flora and fauna.

The history, life, and future touched along the course of Buffalo Bayou from the Katy Prairies to Galveston Bay clearly demonstrate the impact this little river has. It challenges inhabitants today to consider the broad affects on human and wildlife that non-point source pollution has and their role in this. One best understands the expansive human, wildlife, fauna and flora that have significantly changed through time, when one traces the bayou’s source from springs in a Katy, Texas prairie through one of the nation’s largest port facilities and on to Galveston Bay. Beginning with earliest times, one may discover what Native Americans, English colonists, Spanish and French explorers, and subsequent settlers observed and experienced in this ever-changing region. One who explores environmental, historical, social, medical and economic aspects of the ecosystem discovers an incredibly rich heritage and the understanding with which to form the future.

Buffalo Bayou is in a physiographic province of Texas called the Gulf Coast Plain, and until recent geologic times was inundated by the Gulf of Mexico.

Archeological sites near Buffalo Bayou reveal the presence of human beings 6,000 years ago. The oldest contains a previously undisturbed deposit of bone remains and dart points dating from 4000 to 1000 B.C. One site features a shell midden and cemetery with early ceramics dating between 1400 B.C. and A.D. 950. Other sites in the western area and along Galveston Bay have yielded pottery, stone tools, and points from 2,000 years ago. Many shell middens along the bayshore and brackish streams were destroyed in the nineteenth century when residents used the convenient shell heaps for construction.

Cabeza de Vaca, the first European to set foot in what is now Texas, spent several years among the Native Americans, first as a slave, then as a merchant and a medicine man. De Vaca ascended the Buffalo Bayou area from the San Jacinto River and Galveston Bay about 1529 to trade with the woodland Indians. De Vaca's captors eventually allowed him to help trade among the Charruco, who inhabited forests along the inland streams, bayous, and rivers.

Pecan groves along the bottom lands were the site of annual gatherings of the tribes who ground and stored the pecans. Sycamore, elm, green ash, sweet gum and other tree species in that region once harbored birds like the pileated woodpecker, white-breasted nuthatch, Carolina chickadee, chuck-will's widow, and the Kentucky Warbler. Wildflowers like South Texas ambrosia and slender rush-pea flourished there. Other aboriginal animal species such as the red wolf, black bear and ocelot roamed the region.

Shortly after de Vaca's adventure, Luis de Mosocso Alvarado entered Texas; Alvarado encountered several of the Caddo tribes. The Caddo maintained permanent settlements for several thousand years prior to European contact. They gathered and processed fruits, nuts and berries and cultivated small fields of maize, several varieties of beans, squash, pumpkins, watermelons and sunflowers. Buffalo, deer, and bear were plentiful, and a wide variety of fish filled the pristine rivers and streams.

The Bidai, one of the Caddo speaking tribes, lived in the territory they called the "Big Woods." The Big Woods nurtured an extraordinary biological diversity and provided food and protective cover for hundreds of species. Waterways were clear and cold with bountiful plants growing along the banks including the bottle gentian, sweet pepper bush and smooth alder.

Beaver prospered; river otters searched for fish and crayfish in rivers, bayous, and streams and mink preferred habitats along smaller streams. The black bear and red wolf thrived along the bayou and red-cockaded woodpeckers were also plentiful.

Rolling grasslands flourished in the uplands between the streams and bayous; principal species included the Longleaf Pine, bluestem grasses and hundreds of wildflowers such as the bird-foot violet, winecup and purple pleat-leaf.

Where northern uplands graded down, longleaf pines reached a perimeter realm with beech, magnolia, and Loblolly Pine. Rare wildflowers included the Carolina lily and Indian pipe. Indigenous herbs were used as medicines by the local peoples and early immigrants and included puccoon, slender gayfeather, Texas Dutchman's-pipe and silkgrass.