DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Cross Timbers, right here in Cooke County. Now, picture two long, narrow strips of timber — running parallel to each other, side by side, stretching all the way from Oklahoma down to Central Texas. And on either side of them?
Open prairie, flat and wide. The contrast must've stopped early travelers dead in their tracks. Two green walls rising up out of the grassland, like nature drew a line and meant it.
These are the Cross Timbers. And the more fertile of the two — the East Cross Timbers — they begin right here in Cooke County. For pioneers moving across this land, the Cross Timbers were something of a double-edged gift.
On the one hand, a famous landmark — you knew exactly where you were when that dense growth closed in around you. On the other hand, an obstacle. The timber was thick enough to slow travel down to a crawl, maybe worse.
You couldn't just ride through it like open country. It had its own ideas about that. But the Cross Timbers weren't just a puzzle for settlers.
Long before any of that, these forests divided the hunting grounds of the Plains Indians from those of the East Texas Indians. A natural boundary, drawn in wood and root. And it served as a boundary in another sense too.
Right up through the 1870s, this timber marked the edge of settlement. The Plains Indians, you see, avoided the timber. So the line of those trees held — in its own quiet way.
Now, here's the part that outlasts all the history, all the landmark talk, all the pioneer drama. The most important function those forests perform — then and now — is causing the soil to retain water. Not glory, not grandeur.
Just water, held in the earth. Turns out that's what the land needed most all along.
What the marker says
Two long, narrow strips of timber extending parallel to each other from Oklahoma to Central Texas; form a marked contrast to adjacent prairie. The more fertile East Cross Timbers begin here in Cooke County. Area was famous pioneer landmark as well as obstacle to travel because of its dense growth. It divided the hunting grounds of the Plains and East Texas Indians. Until 1870s it marked boundary of settlement, for Plains Indians avoided the timber. Forests' most important function was (and is) causing soil to retain water. (1970)