The Cherokee County Genealogical Society will soon host a program by author Jonathan Gerland, who is executive director of the History Center at Diboll.
Gerland will share readings from his new book published by Texas A&M University Press, “Boggy Slough: A Forest, A Family, and a Foundation for Land Conservation,” at the Singletary Memorial Library in Rusk at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, May 9. Books will be available for purchase and the author will be available to sign them after the program.
The public is invited.
A new environmental history of East Texas, published by Texas A&M University Press.
According to a press release from the History Center, the 400-page hardcover book is a new environmental history of East Texas. It focuses on the Boggy Slough Conservation Area, an unbroken expanse of pine and hardwood forest of nearly 20,000 acres located in Trinity and Houston counties. More than 20 miles of the Neches River, one of the last free-flowing rivers in the state, serves as the eastern border, and for more than a century the land has been one of the main areas of industrial forest management and game from Texas.
A unique blend of natural, cultural, and commercial history, Boggy Slough presents a highly illustrated account of the land, people, and evolution of this region of East Texas from the time of European contact through These days.
Gerland traces the many phases of land use in this forest as it evolved from hunting, gathering, fishing and subsistence farming to an experimental mix of ranching and large-scale commercial forestry. , eventually becoming important conservation land along the Neches River Corridor. Gerland explores the natural features and adaptive land use practices of the region as well as the environmental history of the Caddo people, English-speaking generations and railways, logging camps, barbed wire fences, cattle ranches and exclusive hunting clubs.
The underlying story is the evolution and environmental impact of Southern Pine Lumber Company/Temple-Inland, founded in 1893 by TLL Temple. Now owned and tended by the fifth generation of the Temple family, Boggy Slough lands are the last remnants of what was once a 1.2 million acre lumber empire in East Texas. Gerland examines the struggles of family and logging company to grow and manage a second, third and fourth generation forest, ultimately achieving sustainability while responding to changing environmental concerns and attitudes.
For more information, contact Gerland at the History Center, 936-829-3543, or info@thehistorycenteronline.com; or Vivian Cates of the Genealogical Society at 936-858-3801.
