Explore Purtis Creek State Park: An Angler's Paradise
By: Christopher Long
Revised by: Laurie E. Jasinski
Published: May 1, 1995
Updated: September 16, 2025
Purtis Creek State Park is on Farm Road 316 about fifteen miles northwest of Athens and four miles north of Eustace in Henderson and Van Zandt counties. The 1,582-acre park was purchased from private owners between 1976 and 1982 for $2 million and opened in 1988. The terrain is typical of the Post Oak Savannah region of Texas, with abundant stands of oak, elms, walnuts, pecans, and eastern red cedars. Woodpeckers, warblers, vireos, and other woodland birds are common in the area. Among the park's main attractions is a 355-acre fishing lake impounded in 1985 and best-known for largemouth bass fishing, which is conducted strictly on a catch-and-release basis. Crappie and catfish are also fished and can be kept by anglers. Park rangers enforce a “no-wake policy” and “idle only speed limit” for motorized boating on the lake. Facilities include restrooms, picnic areas, a pavilion, a park store, a boat ramp, more than fifty campsites as well as primitive “hike-in” sites, and hiking trails. The park offers an all-terrain wheelchair to facilitate navigating the trails for physically-challenged visitors.
Bibliography:
Ray Miller, Texas Parks (Houston: Cordovan, 1984). Purtis Creek State Park, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/purtis-creek), accessed September 16, 2025
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Christopher Long Revised by Laurie E. Jasinski, “Purtis Creek State Park,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/purtis-creek-state-recreation-area.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
GKP08
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- May 1, 1995
- September 16, 2025
