Wolf Corner
[Red Wolf - WildlifeScienceCenter.org]
[James Audubon print, "Texas Red Wolf"]
Per Wikipedia:
Langham Creek High School is a high school located near Cypress, which is an unincorporated community in Harris County, Texas, near Houston. . . . The mascot is the “lobo”, Spanish for “wolf”, and the school’s motto is “The Power of the Pack is the Lobo. The Power of the Lobo is the Pack.” The “lobo” mascot may have been selected as an homage to the red wolves that were hunted for bounty in the area during the 1950s and 1960s. Carcasses of the wolves were strung along the fences at the nearby intersection of FM 529 and Texas State Highway 6, which became known as Wolf Corner.
Wolf Corner started with Charles Hans Grisbee. By 1958, dairyman Grisbee had been hunting wolves on the prairie outside the city limits for decades - first for food; but later as a hobby, and for a $5-per-wolf bounty paid by Harris County. He started hanging the wolf carcasses on a fence at Wolf Corner. Houstonians would make special trips to the spot in the 1960’s, just to see the dead wolves on display. Grisbee continued to hang carcasses at Wolf Corner into the early 1970’s.
There have since been questions raised as to whether there were any pure wolves remaining in Harris County in the relevant time period, with some speculating that Greer may have actually been killing coyotes or coyotes interbred with wolves. Wolf Corner and the area surrounding it are now heavily developed, and there is a “Wolf Corner Golf Course” not too far away, at Houston’s Hearthstone Country Club.
There are no wolves currently living in the wild anywhere in Texas. While once abundant in east Texas, red wolves had become at best very scarce in the area by the 1960’s. There were reports of a handful of red wolves killed in Chambers and Kenedy Counties in the first half of the 1960’s, but no red wolves have been documented in or near Harris County since. The red wolf was believed to be nationally extinct in the wild by 1980, though there have since been some releases of red wolves into the wild (but not in Texas) as a result of captive-breeding programs. Gray wolves were also once common in Texas. However, the last two authenticated sightings were in 1970, in west Texas. It is beieved that the disappearance of gray wolves from Texas has resulted in problems with overpopulations of deer in several areas.
More information:
Sablatura, B., “Big Bad Wolves No More”, Houston Chronicle, Dec. 29, 1998
HAIF thread re Wolf Corner
The Mammals of Texas - Online Edition, “Red Wolf” and “Gray Wolf”
Manning, J., “The Wolf in Texas”, The Wild World of Wolves
I have been telling people about Wolf Corner for years and they look at me like I’m crazy! I grew up in the area and vividly remember going down to the corner of Highway 6 and Spencer Road (FM 529) to see how many wolves were hanging on the big railroad ties that anchored the fence around the pasture there. BTW my dad used to go goose hunting in the huge cornfield that used to be down a ways from there. To be honest, I prefer the cornfield and the wolves to all the #&$^%!!%$ development. Rant off - thanks for the memories!
I concur with your thoughts on the damn development and people and remember it too. Seemed like the thing to back then was to kill a wolf and hang it. I remember seeing them on fences, mail boxes, etc. Wish we could find some pictures.
I grew up around the Cy-Fair area in the 60’s & 70’s. It’s a shame how all the development took over. I remember stopping at Wolf Corner to count the number of wolves hanging. The Chronicle ran pictures a long time ago (70’s).