This property used to belong to Mr. Taylor....Ladybird Johnson's daddy. The land was mostly share cropped. The refuge became home to a great mix of early pioneers, including settlers who took up residence and trappers and fishermen who camped along Caddo Lake's shoreline. Timber operators and cotton plantations took advantage of this site's abundant forests and rich, river loam soil.
In 1942 Lyndon Baines Johnson persuaded the Army to buy the land from Mr. Taylor (that's how he met Ladybird) so the army could put an ammunition plant here. Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant was here for over 55 years, manufacturing incendiary devices to rocket motors. During the Korean War, Longhorn expanded its mission to include loading, assembling and packing rocket motors and pyrotechnic ammunition. Production of the original Nike-Hercules rocket motors began at Longhorn in 1956. Longhorn produced illuminating and pyrotechnic ammunition during the Viet Nam War. . At it's peak this facility included 451 buildings, operated its own power and water treatment plants and was interlaced with rails for movement of the raw materials and finished product. On September 9, 1988 Longhorn played a significant role in history when it was the site where the first U.S. missiles were destroyed as a part of the U.S. and Soviets INS treaty...the beginning of the end of the nuclear arms race between the world's atomic age superpowers.
The history here is awesome. It's very scenic, as well. In 1997 the Army determined that this property to be "in excess of its needs" and the following year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requested that the site be transferred to them for the purpose of establishing a national wildlife refuge. The Service began focusing on the management of the habitat for the conservation and protection of the migratory and resident waterfowl and neo tropical migratory birds that utilize these important wetlands.
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