Harris Gully Natural Area
Houston is known as "The Bayou City," and long before the Rice campus existed rainwater that fell in this area drained into the nearby bayou system through a series of natural gullies. The Harris Gully was once a prominent feature of the Rice campus, until construction of Rice Stadium necessitated the transformation of the open ditch into an enclosed, subterranean drainage culvert. On the south eastside of the campus, Between Wiess College and the Wendel Ley Track, near Main Street, a portion of the original gully's path is still preserved, and as a project of Rice's Lynn Lowery Arboretum, has been reseeded with plantings of native grasses, wildflowers, trees and shrubs to create a replica of the natural systems of riparian woodlands that once existed on the banks many such gullies in the Houston area.
Rice's Harris Gully Natural Area also includes a walking path and disc golf course.