The grounds of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum now has a river, a covered bridge across the river and several miniature waterfalls leading to a reservoir on the north end of the park.

Those improvements to the museum’s park area were made possible with the planning of groundskeeper Pete Grivich and Texas Department of Criminal Justice Sgt. Robert Mize and the work of the landscape crew from the Walls Unit.

They were recognized for their efforts during a recent ceremony at the site of the Mac Mize River and the new covered bridge.

The river is located between Lake Oolooteka and the historic Law Office and Sam Houston’s Woodland Home.

Mac Woodard, curator of collections at the Sam Houston museum, said the river was originally known as Smeades Branch named after the Smeades Family who owned the property after Sam Houston.

Woodward said the Smeades operated a girls boarding house and Sam Houston’s home was part of the boarding house.

Grivich said the river handles water runoff from the Avenues down to the 13th Street bridge area.

Woodward said the Walls Unit landscaping crew cleared out debris that had been dumped in the creek.

“We built some waterfalls with stone and then we built a small reservoir on the north end and added a pump and now pump water through a pipe to the south end and recycle that water,” Woodward said. “We have a continuously flowing stream.

“We had a bridge over the creek by the lake. It was needing some repairs so we just took the opportunity to take it out and put in a new covered bridge so it would enhance the creek area.”

“What we did here,” Woodward said, “was the brainchild of Peter Grivich and Sgt. Mize at the Walls Unit. This initially was their idea and the culmination of a lot of work.

“The Walls Unit squad built the bridge. A lot of work and effort went into this. The work was done about three days a week for about a month.

“We wanted to make some improvements to the park and come up with creative ideas as what we can do to the park. I think the park looks as good as I have ever seen it or even remember seeing it, even as a kid.”

After Grivich and Mize developed the idea of what to do with the creek, Woodward said the Walls Unit crew “quickly took over the project.”

“Much of what you see is their idea,” Woodward told the crowd attending the ceremony. “They just didn’t work on the project, they took an interest in it. They cared about it.”

Crew members include Andrew Wilson, Brent Bolin, Edwin Arabin, Justin Kreisher, Lawyer Henry, Douglas Howard and James Lewis.

Grivich said he and Mize “got to talking one day about what the creek would look like as a river and one thing led to another. He and I planned it out, figured out what we wanted it to look like.

“He brought out his great landscape crew and we just did it. He has vision. It’s good to have vision, but it’s better to have vision and a crew.”

“They got in there and literally dug it out by hand,” Grivich said. “They got in there and took out the rubble and anything dangerous. We used some of what they took out and brought in a little bit of rock.

“We want to make it look better and make the water flow in it all of the time. We will continue to tweak the river as we go along.”

Mize said he came up with the idea “a while back and Peter came up with it again. We made it happen. These guys can do anything. We do a lot of hard work, mainly labor.”