Deep in the heart of a small east Texas town, the Sabine River cradles a sprawling birding oasis. Every spring and fall, the Mineola Nature Preserve acts as a pitstop for migratory birds on their long voyages. Vivid indigo buntings arrive in the spring, breed in the summer, and leave by fall in search of warmth in the south, navigating at night by the stars. Summer tanagers, with their vermillion plumage, form flimsy nests with clumps of foliage, eating insects and fruits before taking off in autumn.
Other birds take permanent residence in the preserve. Downy woodpeckers drum away at the trunks of pine trees where they will raise their young. Eastern screech owls dwell in abandoned cavities left behind by woodpeckers. Killdeer burrow in small depressions in the ground, walling themselves in with sticks and fallen leaves. Songbirds flit around foliage, playing tag with the branches. More than 200 species of birds call the preserve home, even if temporarily.
The site, made up of 2,911 acres, is considered one of the best city parks in the country for its size. The preserve is located in Mineola, a small town 25 miles north of Tyler, that holds the official state designation as the Birding Capital of East Texas. Birders can visit the preserve year-round to utilize wildlife viewing stations around the park.
“We have people come out here with those high-power cameras that are larger than your head,” says Owen Tiner, Mineola’s marketing director. “Most of the time, they start at the top of the hill and then make it down into the trail bed area where it’s very wooded. Then you get up in terrains that have wetlands and your herons, your fishing birds like Kingfishers.”
Since its opening in 2006, the preserve has grown to offer a multitude of recreational activities. Whether it’s the 18-hole disc golf course, four mountain biking trails, equestrian paths across the park, archery range or educational beehive, there’s fun for the whole family at the Mineola Nature Preserve.
Yet for all the park’s success, the city of Mineola never intended for it to happen.
In 1996, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told city officials they’d need to expand their wastewater treatment facility in order for their small town of 3,900 to grow. The only way to obtain the additional acreage was to purchase the chunk of land next-door—land that was partially floodplains, making it susceptible to water inundation when it rains. It was less than ideal for traditional development. Left with thousands of acres of excess land, the city was posed with a new challenge: What to do with it?
At the time, the city was also working on a main street development plan in efforts to revitalize the town.
Mercy Rushing, now the city manager, was the director of economic development when the city purchased the land. She and others in the city wanted to find a use for the land that would attract visitors. The city took stock of its assets and proximity to Dallas—just 1.5 hours east of downtown—and ultimately decided to build a park.
“We got a lemon,” Rushing says. “We’re gonna make lemonade.”
The city secured millions of dollars in funding, including donations from Ozarka and Walmart. Sizable grants from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Texas Parks and Wildlife ensured the city could never sell the land.
“We made that commitment,” Rushing says.
After the park was created, the Sabine River Authority and Texas Parks and Wildlife spent a year performing an ecological survey to identify the types of organisms present on the preserve.
The preserve is located in the piney woods region and contains several habitats—grasslands, woodlands, freshwater ponds and wetlands — and a plethora of species. White-tailed deer and nine-banded armadillos creep beneath towering Live oaks, Eastern red cedars and Loblolly pines. Black willows droop over the preserve’s six ponds, where four alligators share the waters with beavers and red-eared sliders and bullfrogs that feast on Eastern pondhawk dragonflies and grasshoppers.
“We didn’t put them there,” Rushing says of the alligators. “They came up out of the Sabine. It’s natural!”
