Living in a Lake Worth neighborhood provides many advantages. Residents live close to nature but are minutes away from a major highway connecting them to the rest of the city. Living on Lake Worth also brings challenges, from the occasional alligator sightings to rumors of the Lake Worth Monster.
Mark Maxwell has lived on Lake Worth for about 20 years and enjoys his quiet neighborhood. One of his favorite things to do is walk with his dog Fred and cat Louis on the trails at the now-abandoned Camp Leroy Shuman, which was formerly used by the Boy Scouts of America.
Tucked away in the trees, the site has become a target for illegal campers, poachers, vandals and arsonists, who set fire to what’s left of the camp’s structures, shoot deer and steal firewood.
Maxwell said the city hasn’t done enough to maintain the site.
“If that were our property, holy cow, we would be getting a fine every day,” Maxwell said.
City officials say the site poses problems that can’t be addressed quickly or easily. The water department-owned property is attractive because of its wooded and secluded trails, but those conditions also make it difficult to maintain, said Nita Shinksy, who manages city-owned property near Lake Worth.
“There’s a fine line between making it super wide open, where you can see when people are on the property, and keeping it kind of the gem that it is,” Shinksy said.
One potential solution to stop illegal activity is moving the site under the city’s new green space program created by Mayor Mattie Parker’s Good Natured Initiative.
The program would transfer maintenance responsibilities from the water department to the parks department and could prompt the city to clean up the trails, which would increase foot traffic and possibly reduce illegal activity.
During a Feb. 28 parks and recreation advisory board meeting, deputy city manager Mark McDaniel said the former camp could be an example of how water department-owned properties can be integrated into the parks system.
“Maybe if it’s adjacent to a park, like this one on Lake Worth, maybe we can integrate it into our parks system where the park department doesn’t own it per se,” McDaniel said. “The water department (would) still own it as an enterprise operation, but we’re maintaining it and making it available and accessible to the public.”
Kate Morgan, president of the Fort Worth chapterof the Native Prairies Association of Texas, said the land is ripe for conservation. Twice a year, her organization holds a BioBlitz at Camp Shuman, documenting the plants and trees growing there. The site is hospitable to common native plants and is home to several rare ones, including a flower called Pink-scale Blazing Star.
“The natural flora on this site are unusual in the Fort Worth area and particularly beautiful,” Morgan said. “It’s a lovely site.”
With better-maintained trails and the removal of invasive species, Morgan envisions Camp Shuman becoming a popular hiking spot, especially for bird-watchers.
“Let people go there and the more people use it correctly as a park,” Morgan said. “That seems to be a better defense against unwanted use than putting a fence around it, which people can get through.”
Camp Shuman is an ‘anomaly’ that presents unique challenges
Most of the properties that make up Lake Worth were purchased by the water department in the 1910s as the city worked to create a new lake. The city owns the land under the lake and the surrounding watershed.
The city first started allowing people to build fishing cabins around the water, a practice that has morphed into full-fledged homes with permanent residents, most of whom have since purchased their property from the city.
Camp Leroy Shuman was established by the Boy Scouts of America Longhorn Council in the 1920s. The Boy Scouts built several structures on the city-owned property, including a mess hall and quartermaster’s shed. When the Boy Scouts stopped using the camp in 2009, the structures were left to deteriorate until they fell victim to arson and the city removed the debris.
“The Scouts made better neighbors than no neighbors,” Maxwell said.
When the structures were still standing, they became a location for homeless people to set up camp. Now, the only structures that remain are low fences and benches and a cross placed at the camp’s one-time chapel.
The combination of activities occurring on the site make it something of an “anomaly,” city spokesperson Reyne Telles said.
“It also creates this kind of nexus of problems that are not handled by any one person in the city,” Telles said. “So, if they continue to report them through the (MyFW) app, and let us be aware of them, we can work within our departments to manage issues as they arrive.”
Maxwell’s main concern currently is people accessing the site from the road using four-wheelers and cars, chopping up trees for firewood and poaching deer. He said he routinely reports problems through the MyFW app but rarely gets a prompt response from city staff.
“We just kind of get bounced around and, you know, they come out and appease and act like something is going to get done,” Maxwell said.
He suggests the city place boulders blocking off possible entrances.
The city is working on placing boulders on the site, Shinksy said, but the size and number of access points on the property make trespassing issues difficult to resolve completely.
“We’ll plug one area, or we’ll try to address one area, and they’ll find another one, which has been the most recent development,” Shinksy said.
While the former camp is being considered for the city’s green space program, issues of equity and safety come into play when selecting properties to include. There are similar sites near watersheds that would benefit from conservation, Telles said.
“(Camp Shuman) is among those that we are looking at,” Telles said.
Incorporating the property in the open space program could prompt the city to create a long-term plan for the property that has been lacking.
“It’s not a magic wand,” Mary Gugliuzza, a spokesperson for the water department, said. “We have homelessness issues in other city parks today, and it’s still a multi-department response.”
Maintenance of water-department owned properties could see a boost after Fort Worth City Council members approved a $169,980 contract with Westwood Professional Services, Inc. on Feb. 27. Westwood will assess landscape improvements at 10 properties across the city, including two near Lake Worth, to enhance green space as part of Parker’s Good Natured Initiative.
The contract will “improve the appearance of existing facilities that are located in highly visible areas, without negatively impacting the maintenance or operation of existing underground piping or infrastructure,” according to a city press release.
Maxwell hopes the city keeps the property green and maintained, incorporates the trails on the property into the city’s existing trail system and blocks off car- and four-wheeler access to the site. He’s not optimistic that anything will change quickly, he said.
Shinsky said she will continue to work with other departments to solve problems as they arise.
“I think that we are handling it, maybe not as swiftly as the residents out there would like, but we are handling it. And I promise we have not forgotten them,” Shinksy said.
Rachel Behrndt is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at rachel.behrndt@fortworthreport.org or via X.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.