Mother Neff State Park, a two hundred fifty-nine-acre park on the Leon River west of Moody, is widely regarded as Texas’s first state park. Its origins began in 1916 with Isabella Eleanor Neff’s six-acre donation, and after her death Governor Pat Morris Neff expanded it in her honor, bringing it near its present size by 1934. Much of its historic character comes from Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817, which between 1934 and 1938 built many of its stone and wood structures, roads, trails, and floodplain improvements. The park is also notable for its varied habitats, wildlife, and a history repeatedly shaped by major flooding.