Sheep and Goat Industry in Texas

San Angelo's wool trade began with the railroad, the Handbook of Texas says. Merra and Hobbs built the first wool warehouse in the fall of 1888 and Halfin and Rouff a second, and even in those years more than a million pounds of wool a year left San Angelo. By the 1920s Rambouillet flocks had replaced the early crossbreeds and wool quality had risen sharply, and San Angelo was the largest primary wool market in the nation. Wool and mohair shipments rose from 5 million pounds in 1923 to 17 million in 1929.

What the plaque says

Spanish explorers introduced sheep to the Soutwest in the 1500s, and Spanish missions depended on the animals for food and clothing. The first Angora goats, known for the beauty and strength of their mohair, were brought to Texas in 1853 by Col. W. W. Haupt. Pioneer of modern sheep ranching in Texas from 1857 to 1867 was George Wilkins Kendall, who encouraged others with glowing reports of the industry's future while improving his own flocks. Kendall was one of the first to crossbreed the coarse--wooled Mexican churro sheep with the fine-wooled merino variety brought by European settlers. The land, climate, and vegetation of the Edwards Plateau area especially suited the raising of sheep and goats. After 1870, with new markets and abundant land, the industry boomed. Ranchers fought disease, predators, deadly plants, and drouths to build their flocks. Today Texas is the leading producer of sheep and goats in the nation, and San Angelo is the major market center for these animals and their wool. Research facilities such as the San Angelo Research and Extension Center, built in 1969 through the efforts of Gen. Earl Rudder, then president of the Texas A&M System, work for the industry's continued prosperity. (1974)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Angelo State Park — 6.0 mi
  A 7,677-acre park around O.C. Fisher Reservoir on the edge of San Angelo, where four Texas landscapes meet and the state's official longhorn herd grazes beside a bison paddock.
• Miss Hattie's Bordello Museum — 7.6 mi
  The upstairs rooms on Concho Avenue where a brothel ran from 1902 until the Texas Rangers closed it in 1952, shown on short guided tours with most of the furnishings original.
• Concho River Walk — 7.7 mi
  Four miles of lit trails along the North Concho through downtown San Angelo, rebuilt after voters taxed themselves in 2004, with gardens, sculpture, a river stage and stocked trout.
• San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts — 7.9 mi
  A free art museum on the Concho beside Fort Concho, founded in the fort's 1868 quartermaster building and known nationally for its biennial ceramics competition.

More markers nearby

• Cornick Bungalows — 6.8 mi
• First Presbyterian Church — 7.3 mi
• The San Angelo Standard — 7.3 mi
• Charles B. Metcalfe — 7.4 mi