Llano Estacado

Staked or stockaded is the old argument over this name. One reading says early crossers drove stakes, or piled stone and bone, to hold a line across a plain without landmarks. The reading geographers now favor takes estacado as palisaded, the look of the caprock seen from below as it rises south of this stop. Neither has been settled. The stretch most often likened to a stockade wall is the west-facing Mescalero Escarpment, farther south in New Mexico, where the plateau breaks off above the Pecos valley.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Llano Estacado Rising above these red-earth lowlands to the south is the Llano Estacado or Staked Plain, a high plateau covering some 32,000 square miles in eastern New Mexico and adjacent areas in Texas. Topographically, it is one of the flattest areas in the United States, and rises to 450 feet above the surround- ing Great Plains.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blue Hole — 26 mi
  A bell-shaped artesian spring in Santa Rosa, 81 feet deep and a steady 61 or 62 degrees, where divers from across the region learn to dive at altitude.

More markers nearby

• Comanche Country — steps away
• Santa Rosa — 25 mi
• Santa Rosa Lake State Park — 27 mi
• Puerto de Luna — 27 mi