By Tom Goynes
River Trail Park
A couple of miles west of Luling, on Hwy 90, is a 20 acre park on the banks of the San Marcos River, owned and managed by the City of Luling. It is a great put in for the Luling Zedler Dam Paddling Trail. The take out is six miles downstream on the right side of the river across from the Zedler Mill.
It is a beautiful, well kept park today, but it wasn’t always that way, and, in fact, in the 1990’s it was almost sold by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDot).
Sometime in the 1960’s the current park was made into a roadside park by the State of Texas and managed by TxDot. Many of us remember camping there, starting in the 60’s through the 80’s
But, by the 90’s it had become a pretty wild place. No one was mowing the property, and lots of off road vehicles were being used there. It was a very rutted up piece of land, with lots of litter and tall weeds. The police said it was such a wild place and the weeds were so high that they were no longer getting out of their vehicles when they patrolled the area. They would just drive down occasionally, shine their lights and leave.
I got word that TxDot was considering closing the rest area completely and selling the land.
I contacted Jitter Chambers, my partner in the 1973 Texas Water Safari and a guy who loved to fish at that park. I asked if he could get together some folks in Luling who would like to take the lead on saving the park. We met at the Luling VFW Hall.
Several people volunteered to mow. I myself hauled my Ford tractor down and did some serious mowing. Often the ragweed was over my head while I was sitting on the tractor. We picked up tons of trash. Several locals, who liked to camp there, offered to be “security” at night. They would keep an eye on things and report illegal activity to the police. They even named the park “People’s Park” and put up signs asking people not to litter.
I was able to arrange a meeting between this group of volunteers and a representative of TxDot. He was actually very excited that the citizens of Luling were willing to do whatever it would take to keep the park.
Soon TxDOT gave the land to the City of Luling and the eventually it became the put in for the Luling Zedler Dam Paddling Trail. The trail was officially launched on March 29, 2006.
