In the early years of Dallas, before the coming of logging trucks, the Arboretum site provided a vital service for Dallas Industry. This was when timber cut in the high country came crashing down La Creole Creek to an early sawmill in Dallas. A series of 3 dams along this small creek held water to boost logs along when sufficient rainfall flooded the upper creek.
Remaining in the Arboretum is the last visible trace of this hazardous early logging, the old flume. The channel has been a verdant fern and flower path for years, but now it has been re-identified as the Historic Log Flume. Today when rains fill La Creole Creek, the flood waters still rush into the Arboretum through the old Flume. Flume: an inclined channel for conveying water usually from a distance for various uses (as power production, transportation, or irrigation). |