Piedmont Ridge officially in the National Register of Historic Places

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by Amy Martin
Exciting news! Piedmont Ridge is now officially on the National Register of Historic Places as a TCP (traditional cultural place) for its historical significance to the Comanche Nation.
Much gratitude to anthropologist Linda Pelon, co-author of Comanche Marker Trees of Texas, for her deep knowledge, determined persistence, and hard work.
 
Highlights of Comanche presence include:
  • Regular visits to the area for the natural riches of the Great Trinity Forest, including harvesting black walnuts and pecans in the White Rock Creek bottomlands, hunting white-tailed deer in the forest, and medicinal plants on the ridges such as inland ceanthos, referred to by later settlers as New Jersey tea.
  • Reliance on Scyene Overlook as a lookout place for bison to hunt, herds of which used the path of present-day Scyene Road as a rock-bottom surface to cross nearby White Rock Creek.
  • A certified Comanche Marker Tree in Gateway Park on Jim Miller, on the north end near Oak Creek. The tree fell in a storm several years ago.
  • Comanches wildscaped several groves of eastern red cedar for tall straight, slow-to-decay poles. These were used to create brush bower structures for large camping trade gatherings.
  • The Comanche Storytelling Place, a well-documented location south of Bruton behind Devon Anderson Park. A series of limestone terraces, now greatly eroded, was used as an amphitheater for story presentations and schooling children in natural wisdom and Comanche lore. Currently difficult to access.
  • A Buckley’s oak near the amphitheater, considered by the tribe to be a witness tree. Arborist Steve Houser considers it the oldest tree in the Great Trinity Forest at some 250 years old.
Pelon referred to the ridge as the White Rock Bluffs in her application. This is why The Loop Dallas was asked to name their new soft-surface trail on the ridge as the White Rock Bluffs Trail. Once finished, it will link the Lawnview and Lake June DART Stations.
 
Message:
 
I’m so pleased to tell you the National Park Service listed White Rock Bluffs in the National Register of Historic Places! Our reviewers really enjoyed reading the nomination, and because it isn’t restricted, your work will become a template for designating other TCPs. So, thank you!
 
TEXAS, DALLAS COUNTY
 
White Rock Bluffs:
The collection of municipal parkland around 2324 N Jim Miller Road. roughly bounded on the north by State Highway 352 and Seco Blvd to the south.,
Dallas, SG100013163,
 
LISTED, 6/25/2026

Amy Martin is the author of Wild Dallas-Fort Worth: Explore the Amazing Nature of North Texas (https://moonlady.com/amy-martin-selected-to-write-wild-dallas-fort-worth-explore-the-amazing-nature-of-north-texas/), to be released by Timber Press in 2022. She is the North Texas Wild columnist at GreenSourceDFW (https://greensourcedfw.org/) and author of Itchy Business: How to Treat the Poison Ivy and Poison Oak Rash (http://itchy.biz/). She was the senior comedy, magic and cirque critic for TheaterJones, The Aging Hippie columnist for Senior Voice, and the Taoist panel member of the Texas Faith blog of The Dallas Morning News. A journalist for over 40 years, she wrote for Dallas Observer, Dallas Times Herald, Dallas Morning News, Senior Voice, and D magazine, and was contributing editor and columnist for Garbage magazine. She was known by many in North Texas as the Moonlady for her alternative newservice of 15 years, Moonlady News, and served as creator/producer/promoter of the acclaimed Winter and Summer SolstiCelebrations for 20 years.

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