Little Sandy Hunting and Fishing Club

In 1907, sportsmen from Dallas and elsewhere created a retreat known as the Little Sandy Hunting and Fishing Club amid prime deciduous forest in the Sabine River bottomlands. In 1985, Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist Dan Lay identified these lands as high-quality habitat, long protected from lumbering, damming and other disruptions. A year later, the Club gave up logging and development rights in order to give the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a conservation easement on 3,802 acres, to be protected as the Little Sandy National Wildlife Refuge. The Sabine River Authority tried to block formation of the Refuge, to hold the land for possible future inundation under the proposed Waters Bluff Reservoir. However, the Authority’s lawsuit under the National Environmental Policy Act was defeated at the district and circuit court, the easement was confirmed, and the land protected with support from the public and elected state and federal officials.