Texans You Should Know is a series highlighting overlooked figures and events from Texas history. Some forty miles east of Houston, past the confluence of the Old and Lost rivers, Texas begins to lose its grip on the horizon. By the time you reach the visitor center at the Big Thicket National Preserve, in Kountze, dense forests of loblolly pine, beech, magnolia, sweetgum, and cypress occlude any clear view. Eddying among those trees are turbid bayous and baygalls, dark as coffee, that provide a funhouse reflection of the overstory—a biodome of fronds, needles, bark, and algae punctuated by the calls of things wild and unseen. A greater diversity of plant and animal life thrives here more than anywhere else in Texas. The preserve is home to…
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