Hello, buddy. I'm Ron Stone and this is the Eyes of Texas, a weekly program of the sites
and the folks who make this state unique. This week we're going to visit a frontier
village in Denison, look at wildlife management at Edwards County, go bike riding in Hayes
County and we'll remember an old soldier. You know, long before NASA was built and Houston
started calling itself the Space City, Houston was the Bayou City. This town began as a tent
town on the banks of this place, Buffalo Bio, right here where the Allen Brothers landed
to start their town.
About 150 years ago, a couple of land speculators were trying to convince people, mostly doubters,
that Houston could be reached from the sea by way of Buffalo Bio. In 1837, they proved
it with a steamer named Laura and that link to the sea made Houston what it is today.
Those speculators were the Allen Brothers and we know now they were men of great vision.
Meet two more men of vision, Lou and Michael Dalio, a father and son team who have brought
back the paddle steamer so that Texans can explore their past. It all started at Allen's
Landing. Two major bios come together here and there was enough room for ocean-going
vessels to turn around, unload cargo, and head back out to sea. Houston grew up around
this spot. But in this century, folks pretty much forgot about Buffalo Bio, except to build
bridges across it. That's why you can still see some of the natural beauty that brought
people here in the first place.
You can also see remnants of old wharves and docks from the days of the very first
settlers and get some interesting new perspectives on the city of Houston. Even natives have
trouble figuring out exactly where they are when cruising the bio.
And I enjoy that very much. It's very exciting to see somebody get kind of a new sensation
of awareness about the city that they grew up in.
There are many different aspects to this bio. In some places, nature is trying to reclaim
its green space. In others, there's still some industrial activity. And the seagulls
silhouetted against the skyline let you know the port of Houston is just ahead. It's the
second largest port in this country and a very busy place.
After the channel was completed in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson was given the honor and the
button that was wired to his office in Washington, D.C. He fired the cannon by remote control
that marked the opening of the port of Houston and the first ship sailed into the new deepwater
port in the south.
You see ships here from all over the world.
Those are Samba seagulls that hang out with the Rio de Janeiro boats.
But when the island queen turns around to head back to downtown Houston, you find yourself
again moving into the quiet, peaceful marshlands, a place where egrets, heron, and fish abound,
a real oddity in the inner city. And the city dwellers, hungry for a little taste of wilderness,
are responding very well to these cruises.
She was the first paddle wheeler to make her way up Buffalo bio in 72 years. And when we
got here, we found this dock, these tie cleats, and exactly the form they sit now. They had
been untouched since 1936. Everything's completely usable. There is no more commercial traffic
here. We're the only tour boat that services downtown Houston. And we hope to enjoy a real
promising future, running tours in and out of Allen's Landing.
Just like the Allen Brothers did 100 years ago.
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Deer season is guaranteed to excite the trigger finger of every hunter out there. And particularly
the ones who get a chance to see the animals that Des Woods works with at Carta Valley.
Almost all the wildlife on the Woods Ranch between Rock Springs and Del Rio is thriving.
The place is almost overrun with turkeys and the deer are growing strong. Because of a
commitment Des Woods has made to improving the quality of the white tail deer herd on
his ranch in South Texas. Des is a rice farmer from Katy. He started trying to improve the
deer herd right after he bought this place in 1973. But he found out there was more to
it than just not killing the deer. He got acquainted with Tommy Haley of the Texas Parks
and Wildlife Department. And they got together on a wildlife management program that has
really succeeded. It started in 1975 and the first full head count they took in 1976 showed
164 bucks, 302 does and 130 fawns. Of those 64 bucks only 31 percent were considered quality
bucks. That is eight points or bigger. In 1982 the total number of deer was about the
same but there were 144 bucks. 70 percent of those were considered quality bucks. There
were 186 does and 131 fawns. It has proved one thing that Des and Tommy thought it would
that a closer ratio of bucks to does does not decrease reproduction. The supplemental
feeding program is helping produce bigger deer and turkeys. After getting requests from
landowners or sportsmen we make a survey of the ranch or the area and see what kind of
vegetation and populations and then from this known data we make recommendations to landowners
to do certain things such as possibly reduce his deer herd, have a different type of management
on the harvest end of it, regulating his domestic livestock to increase habitat because everything
comes back to habitat. With that goal in mind we started a restoration program not only
on the deer but on the land to see if we could return to what Mother Nature had intended
this to be.
The supplemental feeding program is also helping to give the land here a break. Land that Des
says had been overgrazed forever. Sheep and goats are found on most of the ranches in
this part of the state but not here. Domestic livestock has been moved out and on the woods
ranch the deer have the run of the place. We in effect are writing our own book at this
point no one has done this before and we don't know what to expect but I hope that we can
not only go back to the large deer that were here but maybe even go beyond and that's what's
exciting to me.
Well, unfortunately this year Des lost more deer to anthrax but he's still working with
the Parks and Wildlife Department to develop quality deer in Edwards and Val Verde counties.
Well let's go back in time now to the 1950s and an event in Robertson County that made
headlines it wrapped up the story in an American tragedy and it gave Texas another hero. 1959
Ike was in the White House. Khrushchev was touring the United States. Alaska added a
new star to the field. Liz and Eddie and Debbie were a sensation. And the Civil War finally
came to an end. Walter Williams died in Franklin at the age of 117. A soldier in Hoods, Texas
returned with auts to regular service.