New trail preserves Bull Creek

New trail preserves Bull Creek

Written by Rachel Youens Friday, 07 December 2007

City partners with foundation to preserve history, environment along Spicewood Springs

The land along Bull Creek owned by Rowena Stenis’ family, played an important part in her life. It’s where, in the ’40s, she picnicked with her future husband and would later bring her grandchildren to ride horses. It was such an important part of her life that she and her family were willing to wait seven years for another $2 million offer to come their way, allowing the land to be preserved as a nature trail.

On Nov. 9, the land at the corner of Capital of Texas Hwy. officially opened to the public as a hike-and-bike trail. Named for Rowena’s parents who first purchased the land, the Matthew and Hazeline Smith Trail covers 1.5 miles along the banks of Bull Creek.

“We didn’t want to see a beautiful piece of property and trees destroyed for apartments,” said the 85-year-old Stenis, of the 264 unit apartment complex that was once slated for the area. “It didn’t seem right, it’s such a beautiful spot.”

In 1992, JPI Development Inc. was trying to purchase the land for an apartment complex and had offered the family $2 million for the property. The Bull Creek Foundation had been trying to protect the land since 1994 and went to the Stenis family, urging them to hold out. The land became one of the city’s first purchases from a 1998 bond package designed to preserve and expand the city’s water supply. It is also the only city-owned water quality protection land in north Austin.

“Council member Robby Reynolds maneuvered emergency annexation of the property. That raised the tax base, and the company let their option on the property go,” said Skip Cameron, president of the Bull Creek Foundation. “The Stenis family were longtime residents of the area and sort of said, ‘Now what?’ We said if you can be patient, we will work with the city and try to see if we can help them find money to pay you what the developer would pay you.”

When the city finally bought the property for $2.2 million, the foundation worked with the city to create an overall land management plan, and in 2005 forged an agreement with the city to build and maintain an educational trail there, at no cost to the city. The foundation has worked to reseed grasslands on the trail, restore native vegetation and encourage native species to return.

“One of the original people who was meeting with us was University of Texas San Antonio professor Jon Morris,” Cameron said. “He had a lot of knowledge of the watershed and the ecology, and he said one time that so many species have evolved here because they are protected in this ring of hills. The way the animals have evolved in this area is almost like the Galapagos of Texas, he said.”

The Trail

Along the trail, the foundation created signs that not only tell about the ecology of the property, but about the Stenis family who has owned it for almost 50 years. One sign points to the Victory Garden where the family grew vegetables during WWII. Another talks about Camp Gramps, the family summer camp where the Stenis grandchildren came to play. Today, however, the city’s water protection rules prevent people from one of Rowena’s favorite activities at the creek: swimming.

Now that the trail is open, one of the foundation’s goals is to keep Spicewood Springs Road east of Capital of Texas Hwy. looking and feeling rural. Cameron said they want it to stay like country in the city, with its winding, two-lane roads and low-water crossings. He said he hopes they can save the area from the clutter of buildings, like Jollyville Road and US 183.

“We got to talking about this piece of land that the trail is on and realized it’s just one of many things that needs to be protected out here,” Cameron said. “There’s going to be many others to protect out here in Northwest Austin, and we ought to have some activity that keeps an eye on things.”

In the process of making the trail, many people from the city told Cameron that efforts to restore the area wouldn’t do much to lure back native species like the endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler. Today, when Cameron walks the trail, his favorite part is about one-third of the way down the path, way up inside a big tree where one of the timid-yellow birds has begun nesting.

0 Comments