Dipping Vat

Texas fever's carrier was traced to the common cattle tick in 1888-89 by three U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarians, and a lime-sulphur dip came out of the same years, according to the Texas Animal Health Commission's history. The Secretary of Agriculture quarantined parts of Texas on February 26, 1892. When the national program began in 1906 with $82,500 from Congress, 198 Texas counties were under quarantine. An arsenical dip became the official dip in 1911, and within five years 127 counties and parts of 20 more had been released.

What the plaque says

Dipping Vat Before discovery of a dip (1894) and vaccine (1898), the American cattle industry faced ruin, as it lost $40 million annually from cattle tick fever. In 1918, tick eradication began in East Texas, with colorful, exciting "dipping days" enforced every two weeks from spring to fall. Sometimes citizens resented the compulsory dipping, and dynamited vats or held shootouts with authorities. This dipping vat is typical of 50 built in Van Zandt County. It was on the property of G. M. Hilliard (1856-1931), pioneer rancher and merchant. His estate in 1968 sold this park site to the city of Canton. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Purtis Creek State Park — 16 mi
  A 1,582-acre park straddling the Henderson and Van Zandt county line, built around a 355-acre lake with no-wake fishing, borrowed tackle, a 4.1-mile hike-and-bike trail and a nature path.
• Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center — 23 mi
  A Texas Parks and Wildlife hatchery and visitor center in Athens where visitors can borrow tackle and fish a stocked pond, watch native species in gallery tanks and ride a tram around the hatchery.
• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 27 mi
  A free museum at Terrell's airport where about 2,200 RAF cadets learned to fly between 1941 and 1945, with logbooks, uniforms, letters and original training aircraft.
• Governor Hogg Shrine — 29 mi
  Quitman's 27-acre city park, once a state historical park, where two houses tied to James Stephen Hogg's marriage stand beside an arboretum, a nature walk and the grounds of the Old Settlers Reunion.

More markers nearby

• Dixie Hotel — 1.2 mi
• Cadwell Walton Raines — 1.2 mi
• Site of 1896 Van Zandt County Courthouse — 1.2 mi
• Oran Milo Roberts — 1.2 mi