Fairfield Lake State Park

The park was acquired in 1954 by a Department of Army lease, which extended it until 2004. Texas Power and Light Company (now known as Luminant) constructed a dam at Big Brown Creek to impound water as a cooling source for the nearby Big Brown Power Plant. The dam was completed in 1969.[2] The park was opened to the public in 1976.[3]

In the early 1830s, the area was important to Anglo settlers, particularly as a route to Texas and the American southwest. It was also an area of cattle trails.

There are several historical locations in the park, including an historical marker located in the Chancellor Union Cemetery on the park property. This has the graves of many early settlers from the area, including Civil War, WWI, and WWII veterans. The cemetery is still actively used but not maintained by the park. In the Springfield camp loop is an old well left over from the Hill family homestead.

It was announced in February 2023 that the park will close effective February 28, 2023, after the notification was given that the lease agreement will be ending.[4]

The park offers nature programs throughout the year.[5] It has facilities for picnicking, nature study, hiking, biking, fishing, kayaking, paddle boarding, swimming, boating, tubing, jet skiing, water skiing, wildlife observation, horseback trails, wildlife photography, group events, RV camping, tent camping, and primitive camping.

Facilities at the park include a 2,400-acre lake, shaded picnic sites, protected swim beach, playground areas, 136 campsites, primitive camping area, dump station, outdoor amphitheater, a fishing pier, two boat launches, two fish cleaning stations, two courtesy docks, Paddle EZ kayak and paddleboard rentals, rentable dining hall, and over 18 miles of trails to hike, bike, or explore on horseback. Each of the 136 campsites is provided with an RV pad, standing grill, fire ring with grill, and picnic table. All three camping loops have restroom and shower facilities. Water and electric sites are 30-amp hookups. Water-only sites are in the Springfield camping loop and do not allow generators to be run, but batteries are permitted.

Unfortunately, Fairfield State Park was leased by a company called Vistra https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/15/fairfield-lake-texas-state-park-closure/ to the state for 50 years. In 2023, Vistra closed down and unlike other companies which have preserved the land https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2022/10/11/a-swath-of-texas-ranchland-will-soon-be-north-texas-first-new-state-park-in-25-years/?outputType=amp and given generous donations for their use of State compensation,https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/energy-future-wrangles-with-vistra-over-tax-breaks-update.amp. Vistra in fact has received generous tax benefits for many years and yet refused to negotiate with the state in selling the parkland to the state, instead turning on the state that enabled its very existence. Vistra would not have existed without state funding.

This debacle brings to surface some questions for state funding of private energy companies. Texas generously compensated Vistra and as part of that Vistra leased the land for the park. Perhaps private/public agreements of this sort should warrant more scrutiny in the future. Vistra could have exerted more effort to give back to the community that allowed, supported and funded its existence and yet failed to return that trust in selling the park to the developers for demolition.

Vistra decided instead to sell the park to be bulldozed by the developer Todd Interests. Todd Interests intends to turn the park into a development of second homes for multi-millionaires and close it from the public essentially killing the tourism economy of the town and shutting the lake off from public use. A historic cemetery of Freedmen will be demolished and access denied for the descendants. Vistra, unlike other companies that donated parklands, in the state broke public trust by refusing to preserve the park upon vacating. Neither the developer nor Vistra are willing to answer questions to the public for this action, and doubt as to whether they have given due diligence to environmental, historical and economic impact studies is unclear. The park is set to permanently close in June and Vistra is currently in the processing bulldozing much of it, taking out trees to make room for mansions.

• List of Texas state parks

• Official site