Buescher State Park, State park in Bastrop County, Texas.

Buescher State Park covers 1,016.7 acres north of Smithville in Bastrop County, Texas. Its main bedrock is Carrizo Sand, and the park lies in the Post Oak Savannah ecological region, with part of its forest in the Lost Pines ecosystem. A 25-acre lake and a 7.7-mile round-trip hiking trail are among its features.

Emil and Elizabeth Buescher deeded 318 acres to the State of Texas between 1933 and 1936; after Emil's death his heirs gave 318 acres more, and the rest came from the City of Smithville. Companies 1805 and 1811 of the Civilian Conservation Corps built many facilities between 1933 and 1939 from native stone. The park opened in 1940 at 1,738 acres; in 1967 the Legislature transferred 700 acres to the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

The park protects a section of the Lost Pines ecosystem, one of the westernmost natural pine forests in the country. Walking through these woods gives you a sense of a landscape that exists nowhere else in this region.

The park lies just north of Smithville, less than four miles east of Bastrop State Park via Park Road 1, a route popular with cyclists. A 7.7-mile round-trip trail crosses undeveloped areas. The 25-acre lake allows canoeing, kayaking and fishing but no swimming; rainbow trout are stocked in December and January.

A large portion of the park's original land was transferred to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in 1967 for research facilities. This shift reflects how protected lands can be repurposed for other important missions over time.