Texas Water Project
Sacred Aquarena Springs 
Autumn Adair









San Marcos has a small lake called Spring Lake, or Aquarena Springs to some. Spring Lake is home to the endangered wild rice, the Blind Salamander, and is filled by springs at the bottom of the lake from the Edwards Aquifer. The lake is the start of the San Marcos river that runs 75 miles through the Texas country side.










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  Early on, the lake had Native American settlers who saw Spring Lake and the head of the San Marcos River as sacred. They thought of it and the springs as the place where they became themselves. To learn more visit the Sacred Springs Powwow, which is an event that happens every year in San Marcos to tell people about the springs and their beliefs. In the early 1900s, the Spring Lake Hotel was built, and a few decades later the amusement park Aquarena Springs opened up. Aquarena Springs was an amusement park known for its mermaids,The swimming pig named Ralph, glass-bottom boat tours, and the world's only submarine theater. The park had an underwater wedding in the submarine theater, a sky gondola ride, alligators and a pool where people can practice their mermaid swimming. The park was very popular in the 1950s and brought a lot of money into the city of San Marcos. By the 1990’s and Southwest Texas State University (now known as Texas State University) bought it which led to the park slowly decreasing in popularity.









 


    Texas State turned the park into a learning center and returned it to a more nature-oriented center. Some naturalist say that the right thing to do for the lake would be to empty it and return it to its more natural state of just the springs but that might cause more harm than good. The species that live there have gotten use to how the lake is now which means that if it changed the endangered species could die off. Though it would be cool to still have the park here, changing the area back to its more natural state is better for the species that live here with us.