Old cotton fields outside Corsicana

My friend Gregory Joseph (and our two junior friends Foxxy and Peanut (Butter) (his name is Peanut but I call him Peanut Butter) went looking for ANY remaining native Blackland Prairie outside their home in Corsicana. (were unsuccessful, but we had a good time trekking through the brush anyway, and so did two hot, happy dogs. Foxxy and Peanut Butter followed us the whole way. I guess you could call them prairie dogs. Foxxy is the little white dog, and Peanut (Butter) is, yup, the little peanut colored one.

It’s weird traveling through dense brush and trees along a hidden creek then coming out into uplands, and then realizing the entire thing was once a cotton farm, scalped bare. When you know what native prairie should like, and go searching the green countryside south of Dallas to find yourself surrounded by weeds and invasive species — an eerie artificial jungle aside from the elm and hackberry trees and some creekside flowers — you get a grasp of how much was lost. It was funny; we got excited to find a three scattered individual plants of big bluestem grass whose seeds somehow happened to remain in the soil. The Blackland Prairie upon which Dallas Town built was once 12 million acres in size; now just a few scattered parcels of a couple hundred or less acres here and there remain.

Gregory Joseph’s extended family has a long history in the area. They happen to live a few miles outside of town to the west in the country. The majority of black families live on the east side of Corsicana, and have deep roots dating back to the days of cotton. Some still live in shotgun houses. Folks there have been asking about the possibility of starting a Plains Youth InterACTION chapter in Corsicana maybe next year. The story of people on the land continues.