The swamp, "Caddo Lake"/And My vacation

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Who would ever guess that the swamp would be a nice vacation! Caddo Lake is unique to say the least. When I got there it looked like something out of a horror movie. After a while I began to love it. It is so different than anything I have ever seen! The only natural lake in Texas! History: Dont quote me on the dates, up until the early 1800's what is now Caddo lake was a bottom land, where the Caddo Indians lived. Then the red river log jammed and flooded the bottom land turning it into a lake, in the early 1900's they removed the log jam, returning some areas back to '"desirable" farming land, but in an effort to re-establish a navigation system for the steam boats they fortified the natural damn and it filled back to an average of a six foot depth. When the railroads came to Texas steamboat use declined. Even if the steamboats were still in use, they could not travel the red river to the Mississippi river and then the gulf, because the lake no longer reaches the red river. In the 1840's Port Caddo gained notoriety as the home to rowdy pre Texas frontiersmen, increasingly angry Caddo Indians, and would be tax collectors from the united States. After mounting tension within these groups wars and scuffles began to break out including the murder of a tax collector and the increasing encroachment into Indian land. When word of Texas statehood reached Caddo the wily settlers were anxious to get on board. Caddo lake was all but forgotten but for the few sportsmen who new of the lake's bountiful and diverse fish population. (There are over 70 different species of fish making it the most bio-diverse lake in the state) The nearest major metropolitan area is Uncertain, TX, Pop. 150, named after the road and club house that hunters or members were never certain of finding due to the only road tended to disappear when it rained. We would heartily recommend a trip there to take a tour on the graceful ghost steamboat, rent a canoe, watch for blue herons, great egret, gators, turtles, colorful dragonfly's, no shortage of lily pads, and the American lotus flower., and of course the bald cypress and its swamp mate Spanish moss.