Tridens Prairie
Brookston, Lamar County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1841, when Zacharia Westfall was granted 1280 acres of land in this area, much of the northeastern region of Texas was covered with natural prairies. Over the years most of them have been plowed or destroyed. Tridens Prairie, which covers 97 acres of Westfall's original grant, is an undisturbed remnant of the blackland prairie that now is under preservation management. Tridens Prairie is part of a natural grassland that extends from Texas through the midwestern United States and into southern Canada. Its name is derived from the native, perennial bunch grass known as Long-spiked tridens. Over 150 species of grasses and wildflowers have been identified in Tridens Prairie. Dominant grasses of the prairie include Sporobolus silveanus (Silveanus dropseed), Tridens strictus (Long-spiked tridens), Paspalum floridanum (Florida paspalum), and Tripsacum dactyloides (Eastern gama). One of the few remaining native grasslands in the state and once part of a large hay-producing region, Tridens Prairie is an important part of Texas' natural history. It is being preserved by the Texas Nature Conservancy and Texas Garden Clubs, Inc. (1985)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Zacharia Westfall received his 1,280-acre land grant here in 1841, the blackland prairies of northeastern Texas stretched unbroken toward the horizon. Within a few generations the plow had erased nearly all of them. Tridens Prairie—97 acres of Westfall's original grant left undisturbed—survives as a rare window onto the tallgrass grassland that once ran from Texas up through the Midwest and into Canada, home to more than 150 species of native grasses and wildflowers.
Why it matters
This remnant preserves a vanishing American landscape, reminding visitors that the settlement and cultivation that transformed the frontier also swept away an ancient prairie ecosystem now almost entirely gone.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Zacharia Westfall
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Smiley-Woodfin Native Prairie Grassland
Brookston, TX
At roughly 2,100 acres, the Smiley-Woodfin meadow is the largest surviving remnant of the vast native grassland that once rolled from Texas to Canada. A lack of fuel and surface water spared it the plow, and owner M. L. Smiley used it for grazing and hay while neighboring fields eroded under cultivation. After his death the land passed to the Woodfin brothers, and it remains the state's largest supplier of native hay.
Lamar County
Paris, TX
Carved from Red River County in 1840 and organized the following year, Lamar County honors Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas and a champion of public education remembered as the 'Father of Texas education.' The county seat wandered in its early years — from Lafayette to Mount Vernon before settling at Paris, a town first known by the homely name Pinhook.
Campbell Cemetery
Paris, TX
Campbell Cemetery dates to 1843, when Texas was still an independent republic and Anglo settlement of the region was just taking hold. Though the marker records little beyond its founding and its Historic Texas Cemetery designation, the burial ground stands as one of the area's oldest, holding the earliest generations of local settlers.
Site of Lafayette
Paris, TX
In 1841, when Lamar County was newly organized in the young Republic of Texas, a plain clapboard courthouse rose on forty donated acres and became the county's first seat of government, a place called Lafayette. For two years justice was dispensed here under chief justice John A. Rutherford before the seat moved on and the town faded away. The State of Texas marked the spot in 1936 during its centennial, memorializing a vanished frontier community.