Caddo Lake () is a

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

and bayou (wetland) on the border between

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

and

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

, in northern Harrison County and southern Marion County in Texas and western Caddo Parish in Louisiana. The lake is named after the Caddoans or Caddo, Native Americans who lived in the area until their expulsion by the United States in the 19th century. The US forced most of them to move west to

Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...

. The lake and bayou comprise an internationally protected wetland under the

Ramsar Convention The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Ramsar site, Ramsar sites (wetlands). It is also known as the Convention on We ...

and includes one of the largest flooded cypress forests in the United States. Caddo is one of Texas's few non- oxbow natural lakes. It was artificially altered by the addition of a dam in the 1900s.

Formation

According to Caddo legend, the lake was formed by the 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes. There may be some truth to the legend, as Reelfoot Lake in

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

has been documented as formed by that

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

. But most geologists believe that the lake was formed earlier, either gradually or catastrophically, by the " Great Raft", a log jam on the Red River in

. This likely caused flooding of the existing low-lying basin. According to a 1913-1914 survey that dated timber there, the lake formed about 1770 to 1780.

History

Caddo Lake has been used by Native Americans for hundreds of years, but substantial commercial development would only begin with invention of the

steamboat A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. The term ''steamboat'' is used to refer to small steam-powered vessels worki ...

and US

annexation Annexation, in international law, is the forcible acquisition and assertion of legal title over one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. In current international law, it is generally held t ...

of Louisiana and Texas by treaty in the 19th century. The cities of Port Caddo, Swanson's Landing, and Jefferson in Texas, and Mooringsport in Louisiana, had thriving riverboat ports on the lake. Jefferson was the largest inland port in the United States during this period. Gradually as the log jams were removed in the lake and on the Red River by Captain Henry Miller Shreve and then by the Army Corps of Engineers, the lake changed shape and eventually its water level dropped by more than . This dramatically reduced navigability by riverboat and ended the success of the East Texas ports. A different industry came to Caddo Lake in the early 20th century with the discovery of oil beneath it. The world's first over-water oil platform was completed in Caddo Lake in 1911. The ''Ferry Lake No. 1'' was erected by Gulf Refining Company. The well bottomed at and produced . Oil derricks were erected throughout the lake, further damaging the fragile

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by Organism, organisms in interaction with their Biophysical environment, environment. The Biotic material, biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and en ...

. The oil industry left Caddo for richer fields at Kilgore and other locations in Texas. Texas tried to preserve parts of Caddo in 1934 by establishing a 483-acre (2 km²)

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "Federated state, state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on accou ...

, with trails, cabins, and other facilities constructed by the WPA. The Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant was built on the shores of Caddo in the mid-20th century, and its operations polluted large portions of the surrounding

wetlands A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

until its closure in the 1990s. Most of the former plant site is now a federal wildlife refuge. In 1913 and 1914, ecologist Lionel Janes conducted a federal survey of Caddo Lake (called Ferry Lake at the time) for the Department of Interior. Based on an examination of cross sections of bald cypress and hardwood trees, and many dead stumps, he estimated that the lake formed sometime between 1770 and 1780. File:Bulletin 429 Plate X A Caddo Lake.jpg, Caddo Lake c. 1910 File:Bulletin 429 Plate X B Landslide terrace Caddo Lake.jpg, Landslide terrace, north bank of Caddo Lake, c. 1910 File:Bulletin 429 Plate XI B Potters Point Caddo Lake.jpg, Potters Point, north shore of Caddo Lake, c. 1910 File:Bulletin 429 Plate XIII A South bank Caddo Lake Wilcox beds.jpg, South bank of Caddo Lake, c. 1910 Louisiana - Boyce through Kinder - NARA - 23940391 (cropped).jpg, Caddo Lake Aerial view in 1935, Mooringsport, LA in the foreground

Wildlife

Wildlife inhabiting Caddo Lake includes owls, snakes, frogs, waterfowl, bobcats, river otters, beavers, eagles, and alligators.

Preservation efforts

In 1993 Caddo Lake preservation efforts were expanded. The Nature Conservancy had purchased of the Caddo Lake area and announced an agreement to merge this property with the Texas Caddo State Park, creating the Caddo Lake State Park and Wildlife Management Area. As a result of efforts by the Caddo Lake Institute (co-founded by Don Henley and Dwight K. Shellman), in October 1993 Caddo Lake became one of thirteen areas in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

protected by the

. This is an international effort to protect important wetlands for sustainability. Among supporters advocating preservation of Caddo Lake has been rocker Don Henley, singer and songwriter for The Eagles. The Ramsar site was expanded in 1998 to include a total of approximately . As of 2003, Caddo Lake

flora Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for f ...

and

fauna Fauna (: faunae or faunas) is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding terms for plants and fungi are ''flora'' and '' funga'', respectively. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively ...

consisted of 189

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

s and shrubs, 75 grasses, 42 woody vines, 216 kinds of birds, 90

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

and reptiles, and 47 mammals. The ''

Crataegus opaca ''Crataegus opaca'', known as the western mayhaw, is a shrub or small tree of the southern United States. It is one of several species of hawthorn with fruits known as "mayhaws". Description ''Crataegus opaca'' can be characterized as either ...

'', known as the

mayhaw Mayhaw is the name given to the fruit of the species of ''Crataegus'' series ''Aestivales''Phipps, J.B.; O’Kennon, R.J.; Lance, R.W. 2003. ''Hawthorns and medlars''. Royal Horticultural Society, Cambridge, U.K. that are common in wetlands throu ...

, produces fruit that people use to make jelly. Forty-four of Caddo's native species were either

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

, threatened or rare. From 2001 until 2003 Caddo Lake residents fought a legal battle with the City of Marshall, Texas over water rights.

Current threat

The lake is "under siege" by a fast-spreading, Velcro-like aquatic fern, ''Salvinia molesta'', also known as giant salvinia. Accidentally introduced to the lake by boaters, the noxious weed doubles in size every two to four days, rapidly killing off life below the surface. Most of the growth of the plant is on the Louisiana side. Officials have been focused on recovering from damage caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Efforts at removing the weed have included biological means via beetles that normally eat the weed, but these were unable to survive the Texas cold. Herbicide is also being used against the invasive fern. The Texas Water Resource Institute's Caddo Lake Salvinia Eradication Project is evaluating multiple methods of eradication.Caddo Lake Salvinia Eradication , Center for Invasive Species Eradication
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Texas Bigfoot

Since 1965 Texas's Caddo Lake has been the center of hundreds of alleged Bigfoot sightings, according to the North American Wood Ape Conservancy (NAWAC). This was reported in the

Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television television channel, channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, who previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in Manhattan, with ...

2006 documentary ''Bigfoot''.

Cities and towns on Caddo Lake

* Karnack, Texas * Mooringsport, Louisiana * Oil City, Louisiana * Uncertain, Texas * Gray, Texas

References

*Bagur, Jacques D. 2001. ''A History of Navigation on Cypress Bayou and the Lakes''. The University of North Texas Press, Denton, TX *Keeland, B.D. and P.J. Young. 1997. "Long-term growth trends of baldcypress (Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich.) at Caddo Lake, Texas", ''Wetlands'' 17(4): 559/566. *King, S.L., B.D. Keeland, and J.L. Moore. "Beaver lodge distributions and damage assessments in a forested wetland ecosystem in the southern United States", ''Forest Ecology and Management'' 108(1-2).

External links

North American Wood Ape ConservancyTravel Channel Website
* * {{authority control Reservoirs in Texas Reservoirs in Louisiana Protected areas of Caddo Parish, Louisiana Protected areas of Harrison County, Texas Protected areas of Marion County, Texas Ramsar sites in the United States Wetlands and bayous of Louisiana Wetlands of Texas Bodies of water of Caddo Parish, Louisiana Bodies of water of Harrison County, Texas Bodies of water of Marion County, Texas