Claude Alford McLeod

Dr. Claude McLeod, a biology professor at Sam Houston State University, was a student of the Big Thicket who worked to identify the long-elusive contents and boundary of the Thicket. He characterized it as a pine-hardwood association, with a rich understory of shrubs and vines, tied together by a particular combination of soil and moisture. His research demarked an “Upper” and “Lower” Thicket, covering 1.5 million acres, extending over 9 counties of southeast Texas, and later leading to the “String of Pearls” layout of the National Preserve created in 1974.