BUFFALO BAYOU PAST AND FUTURE TO BE SUBJECT OF DOCUMENATARY

The Citizens League for Environmental Action Now and the Endangered Species Media Project are collaborating with experts and scholars in creating a documentary about the history of Buffalo Bayou from earliest times and the possibilities for restoring the bayou. Former newscaster Ron Stone is heavily involved with the project, which will explore the significant historical, geographical, sociological and economic impacts of Buffalo bayou.

CLEAN’S executive director Geoffrey Castro says, “The remarkably rich early history of this waterway will astonish people who are unfamiliar with Houston’s far-reaching and interesting heritage. Steven F. Austin designated Buffalo Bayou as the southern border of his colony, the Texas revolution was won at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River, and the Allen Brothers found it a navigable system from Galveston Island to the new town they would later call Houston. Frontiersmen and families coming to this region staked their hopes and fortunes on an opportunity to make Buffalo Bayou their “river of dreams.”

According to Castro, archeological sites near Buffalo Bayou reveal the presence of human beings 6,000 years ago. The oldest contains a previously undisturbed deposit of bone remains and dart points dating from 4000 to 1000 BC. One site features a shell midden and cemetery with early ceramics dating between 1400 BC and AD 950. Other sites in the western area and along Galveston Bay have yielded pottery, stone tools, and points from 2,000 years ago. Many shell middens along the bay shore and brackish streams were destroyed in the nineteenth century when residents used the convenient shell heaps for construction.

Cabeza de Vaca, the first modern European to set foot in what is now Texas, spent several years among the Native Americans, first as a slave, then as a merchant and a medicine man. De Vaca ascended the Buffalo Bayou area from the San Jacinto River and Galveston Bay about 1529 to trade with the woodland Indians. De Vaca’s captors eventually allowed him to help trade among the Charruco, who inhabited forests along the inland streams, bayous, and rivers.

Castro, who says that about a third of the funding for the project has been raised, hopes that portraying the life that has flourished along the banks of the Buffalo Bayou and showing the master plans for improvement of water quality, green spaces, wetlands, and natural habitats may indeed re-characterize and reestablish this as truly a “river of dreams.”

People who want a close view of the Bayou may want to participate in the 35th Annual Buffalo Bayou Regatta on Saturday, Oct 21. The race begins at San Felipe and Voss, giving participants a great way to see Houston from a whole new angle. For more information about the event, check out the Regatta website.