A Sad Legacy, part 3

This is what Chicosa Lake looks like today. It dried up due to excessive drawdown of the water table. The drying of the lake caused the closure of the state park

While I was walking around the abandoned campground, I noticed alot of dried up cowpies all over the place. I even saw them on the front porch of the bathroom/shower building! Which means cows have grazed this former state park, at least periodically, since the park's closure. One of the most famous cattle trails, the Goodnight-Loving Trail (this name has drawn alot of snickers and innuendos for over a 100 years, but it was named after Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, two of the most famous cattlemen of the 19th century), came right through this area. When the park was open, there was a museum dedicated to the history of cattle ranching and cattle drives that made the American West famous. It had displays of different cattle brands, barbed-wire fencing displays, displays of various items, such as cooking utensils, that were used on cattle drives and alot of historical photographs. It also had historical displays that pertained to the nearby Santa Fe Trail.
While I was standing at one of the dilapidated picnic ramadas, I saw a small grove of trees to the south and a barely discernible building behind them. Behind this building is an abandoned house, undoubtedly a ranger residence from the days when this was a state park. The larger building was once the museum, now sitting forlornly on the windswept prairie. I am assuming the artifacts that were once contained in this museum have been sent to either the state history museum in Santa Fe, or have been distributed among various museums around the state.
I don't know if there was another campground in the park, I didn't see any evidence of one. I am under the impression that this was the only campground. If so, that means there were only 20 campsites in the park, which isn't very many. However, this is not a heavily visited area by tourists, so 20 campsites may have been adequate.
What is left of Chicosa Lake is an analogy for streams and lakes all over the country. It used to be a reliable source of water on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, but now has been reduced to nothing more than a dried up, cracked mud, depression in the ground. This has been brought about by excessive drawdown of the water table over the decades. Lakes, creeks and rivers have been rendered dry, or at the very least, intermittent, because of human manipulation of the natural process. This is not confined to the United States, but it is happening all over the world.