Longhorn
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights read 15:59 UTC
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Longhorn Park Picnic Area overlooks Benbrook Lake & Dam in north-central Texas, easiley accessible from the Chisholm Trail Parkway and southwest Fort Worth. Along with a scenic overlook, a large group pavilion is available as well as picnicking, fishing and boat launching. Keep reading
Recreation
The large group pavilion is popular for family and group activitries. Individual picnic sites and boat launching is also available in the park. The nearby spillway cut for the dam is a popular fossil-hunting locaiotn where visitors can search rof Cretaceous clams and coral remnants form 85 million yeats ago.
Facilities
The large picnic shelter can accommodate up to 100 guests, with restrooms, available parking, access to trails and lake shoreline. There is no electricity on site.
Natural Features
Longhorn Park is on the high rocky bluffs of the Clear Fork, overlooking the southeast end of the dam.
Nearby Attractions
City lease areas on the lake's north end offer golf courses, ball fields, tennis & volleyball courts, children's play areas, trail access and other facilities. Fort Worth's renowned Cultural & Museum District, Stockyards National Historic District, Botanical Gardens, Zoo, Bass Performance Hall, and downtown Sundance Square, are all only a short drive.
What the agency tells you
Day-use only
No electricity available on site.
Park is not specifically designated as accessible; however, it is a generally open and level setting without barriers, significant grade changes or slopes
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Park Hours are from 7:30am to 9pm
Bounce houses, and other large scale recreational equipment must be approved and permitted through the Benbrook Lake Project Office.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets · Pit Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 1 campsite records / ACCESSIBLE PIT TOILETS on 1 of 1 campsite records
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach
- Birding
- Boating
- Fishing
- Picnicking
Full this Saturdayread 15:59 UTC
The agency files 1 record here and marks it day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in. How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 15:59 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 15:59 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 records · the site map
All 1 records
| LONGHORN GROUP SHELT | 1 | day use | 901 ft | $75 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
North Holiday Park1.6 mi
Rocky Creek Park (Benbrook Lake)3.1 mi
Holiday (Texas)3.7 miMustang - Bear Creek Campground4.3 mi
Mustang4.4 mi
Bear Creek4.7 miFrom Interstate 20 or 820, take exit 432A for Bryant Irvin Road, and go 3 miles (1.8 km) south to the intersection with Dirks Road / Altabesa Boulevard. Turn right or west and go 1 mile (1.2 km) to the park and Lake Office which will be on the left.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Fort Worth, TX
Typical weather
Typical October night 54°F, day 81°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 33°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Longhorn is in Texas’s 12th congressional district. Its representative, Craig Goldman (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyCraig A. GoldmanU.S. Representative · Texas’s 12th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn CornynU.S. Senator · Texas
- Your senator, on the same appropriationTed CruzU.S. Senator · Texas
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Longhorn, Texas
Dear Craig A. Goldman, I’m a constituent in Texas’s 12th district. I tried to camp at Longhorn, Texas, and couldn’t. Every site at Longhorn is reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Longhorn keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Longhorn. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Longhorn (Texas) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Longhorn, Texas
Dear John Cornyn, I’m a constituent in Texas. I tried to camp at Longhorn, Texas, and couldn’t. Every site at Longhorn is reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Longhorn keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Longhorn. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Longhorn (Texas) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Longhorn, Texas
Dear Ted Cruz, I’m a constituent in Texas. I tried to camp at Longhorn, Texas, and couldn’t. Every site at Longhorn is reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Longhorn keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Longhorn. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Longhorn (Texas) via campanac.com