Site of San Marcos National Fish Hatchery

The hatchery did not end with the ponds. In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson ordered the 44-acre site and its fifteen ponds given to Southwest Texas State University, where biology classes used them for teaching and research. The federal work moved to a new site south of town, dedicated in 1976, and in 1983 it became the San Marcos National Fish Hatchery and Technology Center as its mission turned to threatened and endangered species. Since 2012 it has been the San Marcos Aquatic Resources Center. The old hatchery building was moved in 1981 to North C. M. Allen Parkway.

What the plaque says

Site of San Marcos National Fish Hatchery (First Federal fish hatchery in Texas) Established in 1893 on the 25-acre tract known as the W. D. Wood place. In early years the fish produced here were used to stock streams and ponds for sport purposes. Later this site became a pilot plant for testing new techniques of hatchery production. Here too, the tropical South African fish "tilapia" was bred in an effort to introduce non-native fish suitable for game fishing into the United States. At the time hatchery was built, cost of site was $4,500. Plant tied for fifth place in order of Federal hatcheries founded in the U.S. A water supply dam was finished in 1895 and an artesian well in 1896. In recent years this hatchery stocked largemouth black bass, bluegill, sunfish, and channel catfish in 15 ponds on 44 acres of land. Fish from these ponds were distributed to waters under supervision of the Federal government, while state hatcheries stocked state waters. Both state and national governments cooperated to supply private ponds free of charge. This facility closed in 1965 because operation was no longer economical and because the surrounding city made expansion of the plant impossible. Today there are 90 national fish hatcheries in the nation. Texas has 4 Federal and 13 state hatcheries. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 0.5 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.
• Gruene Historic District — 14 mi
  A cotton town on the Guadalupe that the boll weevil emptied, rescued in the 1970s by a kayaking architecture student, with a dance hall that says it has never closed.
• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 16 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.
• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 17 mi
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.

More markers nearby

• San Marcos Mill Tract — steps away
• Site of Hays County's First Public Building — 0.2 mi
• William W. Moon — 0.3 mi
• First National Bank of San Marcos — 0.4 mi