Substation No. 14

The substation joined a state research system that began in April 1887, when the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station was founded at A&M, and its first projects ran at College Station by March 1888. Field tests spread to prison farms and schools, and the first permanent regional station opened at Beeville in 1894. By 1994 the station ran twelve regional research and extension centers, among them Uvalde and San Angelo, with smaller units including Sonora, Barnhart and Pecos. Like the extension service, it is part of the Texas A&M University System.

What the plaque says

Substation No. 14 In 1914, Edwards Plateau ranchers were in a severe drought and losing sheep and goats to poisonous plants. Ranchers B.M. Halbert, V.A. Brown, R.E. Taylor and J.B. Murrah and the newly-formed Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association proposed a local experiment station. The Texas Legislature appropriated $10,000 to establish Substation No. 14 through Texas A&M University, and citizens of Edwards and Sutton counties raised additional funds to acquire 3,462 acres of the Annie and D.B. Cusenbary Ranch midway between Rocksprings and Sonora. Since its opening in 1916, work has varied from plant research and vaccines to range conservation, watershed protection and prescribed fire. Later called the Sonora Research Station, it has contributed to the ecological, economic and social well-being of the region. (2019)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caverns of Sonora — 25 mi
  A show cave on a Sutton County ranch, opened in 1960 by cavers who wanted to stop the damage, and dense with helictites that grow sideways in every direction.
• Devil's Sinkhole State Natural Area — 27 mi
  A 140-foot shaft into a cavern outside Rocksprings, seen only on guided tours from a platform at the rim as some three million bats spiral out on summer evenings.
• Devils River State Natural Area — 33 mi
  Two remote units on a spring-fed river of the Lower Pecos canyons, reached by reservation only, where rangers lead weekly walks to painted shelters like those Amistad drowned.

More markers nearby

• Turner-Davis Ranch Headquarters — 17 mi
• Mackenzie Trail — 18 mi
• Wentworth — 19 mi
• Sutton County — 21 mi