Explore Possum Kingdom State Park: A Nature Lover's Paradise
By: Christopher Long
Revised by: Laurie E. Jasinski
Published: June 1, 1995
Updated: November 4, 2025
Possum Kingdom State Park is on Park Road 33 seventeen miles north of Caddo in Palo Pinto County. The 1,528.7-acre park, adjacent to Possum Kingdom Lake, was acquired from the Brazos River Authority in 1940. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Company 2888 started work on park development in May 1941. Crews constructed the park road, culverts, and a caretaker’s cabins. CCC structures such as picnic tables, fireplaces, and a floating pier were later replaced. Work soon stopped, however, with reassignments and a focus on military projects with the U.S. entry into World War II. Company 2888 left the park in July 1942 and was the last CCC company to leave state park work in Texas. The park opened to the public in 1950.
Possum Kingdom State Park is located in the rugged terrain of the Palo Pinto Mountains and Brazos River Valley. Some of the parkland is gently sloping with a beach for swimming by the lake, but much of the shoreline is steep cliffs. Ashe juniper, mesquite, oak, live oak, and redbud trees abound in the park. Among the wildlife found in the area are deer, turkey, raccoons, bobcats, coyotes, and opossums. The park maintained a herd of longhorn cattle for a time, but they were moved to San Angelo State Park. Facilities include restrooms, hiking trails, picnicking areas, a park store, lodge, boat ramps, and marina. The massive lake boasts more than 300 miles of shoreline, and popular activities include swimming, water skiing, and boating. The lake’s clear blue water facilitates scuba diving. Anglers can fish for varieties of bass and catfish as well as crappie and sunfish. Campers have access to more than 110 campsites, ten primitive campsites, and six cabins (two of which are wheelchair-accessible). A devastating wildfire in 2011 affected more than 90 percent of the park, but the land has shown steady recovery, and a beneficial consequence was the burning of invasive species, such as cedar.
Bibliography:
Cynthia Brandimarte with Angela Reed, Texas State Parks and the CCC: The Legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2013). Ray Miller, Texas Parks (Houston: Cordovan, 1984). Possum Kingdom State Park, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/possum-kingdom), accessed November 4, 2025. James Wright Steely, The Civilian Conservation Corps in Texas State Parks (Austin: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, 1986).
Categories:
Time Periods:
Places:
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, “Possum Kingdom State Park,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/possum-kingdom-state-recreation-area.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
GKP07
All copyrighted materials included within the Handbook of Texas Online are in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 related to Copyright and “Fair Use” for Non-Profit educational institutions, which permits the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), to utilize copyrighted materials to further scholarship, education, and inform the public. The TSHA makes every effort to conform to the principles of fair use and to comply with copyright law.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
- June 1, 1995
- November 4, 2025
