The park
Breakaway Springs Park
It doesn’t have a sign, a parking lot, or a line in the County budget. It has a pond, a trail, a lot of trees, and thirty-five years of neighbors who treat it as what the deed says it is.
7.38
acres, deeded to the County in 1990
35
years of continuous neighborhood use
~4
acres in the floodplain, by the County’s own exhibit
$0
of County money spent acquiring or maintaining it
The tract sits at the dead end of Chitina Court, between the Breakaway Park subdivision and Silverado Ranch. A pond fills the low ground in the middle — a little over an acre in dry weather, several acres after a good rain — surrounded by live oak, cedar, and prickly pear. A single-track trail crosses the property and connects the two neighborhoods; Silverado residents walk it to reach Breakaway, and Breakaway residents use it as a shortcut to the shops on the other side.
Nobody assigned this land a use. The neighborhood just used it. Kids ride the trail and hunt eggs in the spring. Families have canoed the pond for decades. Neighbors paint rocks and leave them along the path, clear deadfall after storms, and keep the trail open. Deer, herons, and turtles live there because nothing else does.
It costs the County nothing. When the subdivision was platted, the Commissioners Court asked that the plat exclude the County from any maintenance responsibility, and the plat says exactly that. The neighborhood has carried it since 1991.
In pictures
Photos contributed by neighbors. Have one to add? Send it to us.
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Contributions or gifts to Breakaway Springs Park Alliance are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.