STRAWN — On the first morning of the year, a line of cars was already wrapping around the entrance of Texas’ soon-to-be newest state park. Hundreds of visitors from Beaumont, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio got a sneak peek of Palo Pinto Mountains State Park, which will open to the general public later this year.
Park staff greeted visitors with smiles and water bottles with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department logo and took them on guided hikes through the nearly 4,871 acres of former ranch land spread across Palo Pinto and Stephens counties.
Located about 80 miles southwest of Fort Worth, Palo Pinto Mountains will become the first new state park to open in North Texas in nearly 25 years. On New Year’s Day, park rangers led group hikes for people who had reserved a spot to see the nearly-completed park.
For the first hike of the day, ranger Kate Fisher led a group of about 30 along the one-mile Raptor Ridge Trail. Among them, two sisters who enjoy the peaceful quiet of nature together.
“It takes us away from all the hustle and the bustle in the city,” said Christine Ledermann, 53, a deputy Hood County clerk who came with her sister. “We love nature so much, and it just means so much to us to be in that environment, just to hear the wind.”
Park Ranger Kate Fisher speaks to hikers at a scenic overlook during a hike on Raptor Ridge Trail at Palo Pinto Mountains State Park on Jan. 1, 2026. “We’ve been waiting forever,” said her sister, Cheryl Keenan, 51, who has been following the park’s construction updates for the past three years. The sisters wore matching park shirts and said they’ve hiked state parks together since they were kids.
The park’s dramatic landscape is defined by a landform known as a cuesta, a gradual slope on one side that drops sharply on the other. Here, they rise to nearly 1,400 feet, offering sweeping vistas of canyons carved over millennia by wind and water.
“I like to describe these as baby mountains,” said Fisher, the park ranger.
Ridges called "cuestas" on the horizon at Palo Pinto Mountains State Park on Dec. 15, 2025. The park’s terrain is often compared to the Texas Hill Country, though the rock formations and vegetation give it a character all its own. The park is home to mixed-grass prairie, hardwood forests and Ashe juniper. The endangered Golden-cheeked warbler builds nests out of the tree’s bark like “little engineers,” Fisher said, and sings a tune that sounds like the Spanish song La Cucaracha. The park is also home to white-tailed deer, bobcats and wild turkeys.
The centerpiece of the park is 90-acre Tucker Lake originally built in 1937 to supply drinking water for the nearby city of Strawn. The lake will anchor the park’s recreational activities, including fishing, paddling, swimming, picnicking, and birdwatching.
The creation of the park has been more than a decade in the making. In 2010, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department partnered with The Nature Conservancy to identify land for a new state park in North Texas. That effort led to the purchase of the first 3,300 acres in October 2011, funded by proceeds from the sale of Eagle Mountain Lake State Park near Fort Worth.
Additional land acquisitions followed, and in 2014 Strawn leased Tucker Lake to Texas State Parks.
Funding and development took years to line up. In 2019, the Texas Legislature approved $12.5 million to build the park, while the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation committed to raising up to $9 million in public and private funds for park facilities. Construction officially began in 2021, during the height of COVID-era supply chain disruptions, said James Adams, the park superintendent.
The park is nearing completion, and while an opening date has not yet been set, Adams said the park will open sometime in 2026.
When complete, the park will offer about 60 campsites, including RV and tent camping and a dedicated equestrian campground with horse-friendly amenities and trail access.
For Jacob and McKenna Hamm of Dallas, visiting the park before its official opening marked another milestone in their ongoing love affair with Texas parks. The couple said they have explored 81 of Texas’ 91 state parks in the past three years. Their six-week-old baby, cradled in Jacob’s arms, has already joined them at three.
“It definitely gives us time to just be together and away from the world a little bit,” McKenna said.
Tucker Lake at Palo Pinto Mountains State Park on Dec. 15, 2025. The lake is the centerpiece of the park and provides water to the nearby town of Strawn. Disclosure: The Texas Parks And Wildlife Department has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
