I wipe the water from my eyes and peer at the canyon walls. It’s the early 1980s and I’m 10 years old, swimming in a pool formed by the White River, surrounded by shale and cliffs of sandstone. Right in front of me is the rarest of Texas landscapes: a series of small water-falls flowing gently over staggered shelves of rock. The sounds of laughter, splashing, and gleeful shouts echo across the canyon.
I see one of my uncles walk out of the water, completely soaked, his plain T-shirt and jean shorts gushing with trapped water. He chuckles as he waddles onto a rock, his wet feet making a splat with each step. I look up toward the 15-foot-high rock ledge from which only the bravest dare to jump. Silver rays of sun blind my eyes, and I block the glare with my hand. The great cottonwood trees creak, showing their age, their leaves shimmering. Below, the maiden ferns that grow from every crack of rock drip with spray. Then someone jumps, diving from the ledge with a big splash into the deep pool. I hug the bank, wide-eyed, and watch.
It’s the only time I remember swimming at Silver Falls, outside my hometown of Crosbyton in the Panhandle. It wasn’t just a swimming hole. It was also a rest area and roadside park—the largest in Texas. Drive in from US 82 today and it looks just like any other safety rest area. But if you get out and take the stairway down the hill, walk onto a lengthy grass lawn in a poplar grove dotted with Depression-era picnic tables and benches made from native stone, and continue alongside the canyon wall, you’ll happen upon the rock ledges and pool of the once-flowing Silver Falls.
For years, families gathered at the park for cookouts, reunions, and Easter egg hunts. Lovers, young and old, escaped the eyes of a small town and rendezvoused at caves near the falls, carving their initials on the rock face with pocketknives. “X+X” circled by a heart.
